Senate leader to attorney general: Defend LGBT law or resign

and cost the state a bunch of money in the process.

to that nut in KY.

is the guy who took over the Duke lacrosse case from Mike Nifong. Here he is dismissing the charges:



Here is last week, commenting on the new legislation. Hat tip, Joe.My.God:

is going to bow to your pressure. I can't wait to vote for Roy Cooper in the fall

Roy Cooper will hold steady.

.... to refuse to do his job too? Just like a Republican?

Or he could deliberately put on a Keystone Cops incompetent defense in court.

He's been one of the good guys for a long time now, and he is doing this the right way!

How about the attorney general supports the law of the country and not some backhand attempt at making discrimination OK?

By refusing to defend the law?

I was calling the person (being nice) who wanted him to enforce lgbt discrimination an asshole, not the AG. He's the good guy in this. Sorry I wasn't clear who I was calling the ass.

The same thing happened here in Calif. re: anti- same sex marriage Prop 8.

I think it was then State AG Jerry Brown who would not defend it in court even though it actually passed a popular vote in a general election.
Gawd that Prop 8 was embarrassing for lefty Californians.. Lot's of out of state money came in on that one...

They were all over the state poking their sticky fingers into things. What did they think? That CA was UT?

Nevertheless, they helped get it passed. Amazingly.

I lived in Ontario, CA at the time. My whole family voted against it. But the Mormons were all over the place lobbying for it.

Thankfully it did not last long.

Was also a strong supporter of Prop 8. The man is a flaming homophobe.

Cooper doesn't appear to be claiming that the law is actually unconstitutional, but rather that it's a "national embarrassment" and bad for the economy. It seems he can legally defend the law, but just doesn't want to. That might be a big problem for a public servant.

If Cooper's asserted basis for refusing to discharge the duties of his office is just that he doesn't like a law, no matter how strong his feelings or how much we might agree, rather than proffering a strong legitimate basis for its unconstitutionally, he might find himself and his office is in a great deal of trouble in court. If that's the case, a court could publicly admonish him, direct other attorneys from the state AG's office to defend the law, and warn that his interference in such defense or anything less than unequivocal zealous representation will result in sanction. At the very least, the state AG might need to fund private counsel's defense of the law on behalf of the legislature. In any event, if the legislature so wishes, the statute will be properly defended in court.

... then you can go run after them!

Do your job or resign?

How come it never came to that?? /rhetorical question

The difference is she had no discretion about her job, but Cooper does. A county clerk does not get to pick and choose what laws to obey. A state AG, however, does have discretion about defending/pursuing law suits.

Indeed, as an attorney and officer of the court, he is precluded by ethics rules to present a sham defense of a law he knows is unconstitutional. The ant-LGBT law is unconstitutional on its face.

Kim Davis is only required to comply with Constitutional laws. However she, like the AG, must comply with the Constitutional requirements of their job, which in her case include issuing marriage licenses in a nondiscriminatory manner. She failed to do that. She should have been fired.

passing unconstitutional laws.

"Berger says Cooper's campaigning is making it impossible for him to fulfill his duties as attorney general."

Says the asshole that can't fulfill his duties as a Senate leader because of his feeble intelligence.

I've voted for him.

I hope he is NC's next Governor.

He'd be doing his job

nt

Of course for these teafucklicans racism is a valid excuse for not doing their goddamn jobs.

nt

No good lawyer is going to take a case that is prima facia unconstitutional.

and where did Cooper ever make such a claim?

As an attorney, I can assure you that just because a law is bad or offensive does not render it unconstitutional or even necessarily contrary to federal law.

Despite the wishes of the some government and private organizations and most people on DU (including myself), it has not been established in the courts that the Equal Protection Clause or other constitutional provisions protect access to restrooms and similar areas based on gender identity, nor does federal discrimination law explicitly protect transgender individuals. Although some lower courts have tried to interpret current law to do so, they are in the clear minority. In fact, segregation based on sex in lavatories, lockers and similar locations has generally been recognized as a legitimate exception to sex nondiscrimination statutes. Lastly, absent the rare provisions in a state constitution, state legislatures can, and very often do, preempt laws of cities and towns.

nt

Passage was guaranteed due to roughly 2/3rds Republican majority, so they probably thought a little pandering to the fainting couch brigade wouldn't be bad.

Cooper can tell them to go fuck themselves.

But that would probably greatly help his campaign for Governor.

See my Post #30 above.

Cooper, as both the State AG and officer of the court, may indeed have certain legally enforceable obligations.

But if it takes down "religious freedom" all the way to SCOTUS, I'm all for it!