Understand: I'm not equating Julie Hoy, the Mayor of Salem, Oregon, with Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Though they're each conservative, fortunately Hoy isn't nearly as obnoxious and dangerous as Trump.
But they do have this in common. Both Hoy and Trump benefit from the fact that doing something illegal or unethical can be done quickly, while holding someone to account for such an action can take months or years.
This relates to the adage, "Justice delayed is justice denied." Wikipedia explains:
"Justice delayed is justice denied" is a legal maxim. It means that if legal redress or equitable relief to an injured party is available, but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no remedy at all.
This principle is the basis for the right to a speedy trial and similar rights which are meant to expedite the legal system, because of the unfairness for the injured party who sustained the injury having little hope for timely and effective remedy and resolution.
Today I phoned the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to check on the status of a complaint I filed against Mayor Hoy on March 12 of this year. My complaint alleges that Hoy engaged in prohibited private serial communications with a majority of the City Council, which led to the forced resignation of City Manager Keith Stahley.
As noted on its web site, the Ethics Commission has 60 days for its staff to conduct a Preliminary Review of the complaint. I was told that the 60 days has expired (which I already knew). The next step is for the Ethics Commission to decide at its June 13 meeting whether there is cause to move to the Investigation Phase, which can be 180 days. After that there can be a Contested Case Hearing and an Appeal to the Court of Appeals.
So the whole process can take the better part of a year, or even longer. Meanwhile, Hoy enjoys what I allege she was able to do: get rid of a City Manager she didn't like through an unethical action prohibited by state law. That happened quickly. Holding Hoy to account will require many more months, assuming the Oregon Government Ethics Commission agrees to investigate my complaint.
Also today, the United States Supreme Court held a hearing on Trump's executive order that he issued on his first day in office declaring that birthright citizenship isn't the law of the land, even though it is part of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Trump issued the order because he wants to deport everyone who is in this country illegally. Doing away with the citizenship of children born to undocumented migrants would make that easier. However, the Supreme Court paid little attention to whether Trump's executive order is unconstitutional, because almost certainly it is.
The debate centered on whether district court judges could issue injunctions that apply to the entire country, in the case to forbid the Trump administration from not recognizing the citizenship of almost all children born in the United States (exceptions include children born to parents who work in a foreign embassy). A New York Times story says:
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday in a case related to President Trump’s executive order trying to end so-called birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented migrants. But the question before the justices was narrower: whether a single district court judge has the power to block a policy across the country.
...Shortly after being sworn in to his second term, Mr. Trump signed an order that reinterpreted the meaning of the 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to grant automatic citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil.
The order seeks to deny citizenship to babies born to undocumented migrants and visitors without green cards. As a practical matter, that would start with agencies in the executive branch refusing them citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards.
Multiple courts around the country have blocked the government from obeying that order, ruling that it is most likely illegal. They did so using universal injunctions, or orders that apply nationwide and cover people in similar situations who were not parties to the cases. At this stage, the Trump administration is challenging only the ability of courts to issue such orders.
...One of the major themes drawn out by lawyers for the plaintiffs was the practical effect of doing away with nationwide injunctions in a case that touched on an issue affecting all Americans. The lawyers worried that before the Supreme Court issued a final ruling on the question of birthright citizenship, there could be “chaos on the ground” if some states were allowed to keep the practice and others states did not.
Jeremy M. Feigenbaum, New Jersey’s solicitor general, pointed out that if Mr. Trump’s policy prevailed in certain states, children of immigrants born there might not be able to get Social Security numbers. That could become a problem, he suggested, if they later moved to states that did recognize them as citizens, particularly if they tried to apply for government benefits.
Mr. Feigenbaum also noted that if a person’s citizenship depended on what state they were in, there could be widespread confusion about their immigration status as well. He wondered aloud whether the children of immigrants might be subject to deportation in states that did not recognize birthright citizenship and yet be shielded from removal in states that did.
Some of the justices raised an important issue.
If the Trump administration never appeals adverse rulings by lower courts to the Supreme Court, then if a nationwide injunction isn't in effect, undocumented migrants who were born in the United States and live in the 28 states where courts haven't ruled against Trump could be deported for an indefinite period -- giving Trump what he wants by delaying justice, which means justice denied.
So this is why Mayor Hoy and President Trump have something in common. Each politician is benefitting from a legal system that moves much more slowly than it took for apparently illegal/unethical actions to be carried out by Hoy and Trump.
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