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02:19 PM - Pocketbook Politics WorldNetDaily posted up a hit piece early this morning, largely based on Congressman John Hostettler's recent podcast promoting H.R.2679, a piece of legislation specifically intended to financially cripple civil rights groups defending against religious establishment, such as the ACLU and Americans United. The podcast starts off with an announcer boldly claiming that under current law, a public official could be made to pay the legal expenses resulting from a lawsuit brought against him for publicly echoing Dickens' famous line "God bless us, every one." When asked whether this is an exaggeration, Hostettler answers in the negative and goes on to claim that "public officials are scared to death" to recognize "our Christian roots" for fear of a lawsuit, but fails to back up his claim with any actual cases in which officials have been personally censured or fined for doing so, despite the annual presidential and gubernatorial practice of officially declaring a day of prayer, very often with specific references to the Abrahamic religious traditions. Hostettler's bill would amend the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Act of 1976, which allows for the remuneration of plaintiff's attorneys who win cases for clients deprived of constitutional civil rights. Hostettler characterizes this law as having been perverted to protect "freedom from religion" a right which he claims can be "found nowhere in the Constitution." As an example of this alleged abuse, the congressman cites Lee v. Weisman, the case in which the Supreme Court prohibited schools from turning secular graduation ceremonies into religious baccalaureate services, and the ICLU's attempts to enforce this decision by forewarning school districts and officials that they will sue (and most likely win) in the event that that the schools decide to deliberately ignore the high court in this matter. As a result of the aforementioned federal law, the plaintiff's attorney's fees would be paid for by the school district if they lost the case. Hostettler characterizes this remuneration of citizens for legal fees incurred in the defense of their constitutional rights as "extortion," because of the possibility that school officials may have to pay out of pocket on account of what he calls the "evolution of the 19th century civil rights code." Oddly enough, he provides no historical examples of such abuse to support his serious and oft repeated contention of extortion, though he does mention a case filed against Gibson county in which the defendants eventually prevailed in their efforts to maintain a sectarian monument on state property. Although the county itself was explicitly named as the defendant (rather than any individual officials) the congressman claims that the county commissioners may have been held personally liable for the plaintiff’s attorney's fees if the county had lost the case. Thusly, a factual counterexample is transformed into a cautionary example by means of a counterfactual -- and we thought plaintiff’s lawyers were tricky! It strikes me a particularly odd that the Congressman cannot come up with a single case in which an individual was legally required to pay the ACLU’s fees, since he himself claims that the “anecdotes are legion” in which officials were legally bound to discontinue endorsement of religion. Could it be that the argument from personal extortion is merely smokescreen? (
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