Wednesday, June 27, 2001
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Wednesday, June 27, 2001 |
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Publisher's column knocking attorneys wasn't very smart Is elective office best reserved for those who know the least, better to reflect, perhaps, the mediocre elements within our society? Are we to tell our children the study of law would make them less worthy and less desirable as elective office holders? Your front page editorial musings of June 13, in your last issue before the county commission special election, certainly suggest that much. Let me set you straight. You "admit to a certain wariness about attorneys in public office," adding, "Attorneys already interpret all our laws, and thanks to a General Assembly loaded with lawyers, attorneys mostly write all of our laws." (I'll get to the McNally story later.) Among the 180 members of the House in the Georgia General Assembly, there are 29 lawyers. Of the 56 senators, 9 are lawyers. The overall percentage is 16 percent. These are facts. Does it make the General Assembly "loaded" with lawyers? I think it was your statement that was loaded. Do attorneys mostly write all of our laws, as you said? At the state level, I might as well tell you, attorneys write all of our laws. That's because, under Georgia law, we have a legislative counsel who "shall be an attorney skilled and experienced in legislative matters and bill drafting" whose duty it is "to provide bill-drafting services which shall be equally available to every member of the General Assembly." A legislator can take his ideas to the legislative counsel, and the legislative counsel will assist the legislator in coming up with a bill which expresses the legislator's wishes. What's wrong with that? The statement that "attorneys already interpret all our laws" is itself absurd. When you see a sign on the side of the road which shows 55, does a lawyer have to tell you it means the speed limit is 55 miles an hour? Some laws are simple to understand, and there are some, usually dealing with complex subjects, that aren't. I expect that laws regulating the operation of nuclear power plants might need some interpretation, possibly with the assistance of an engineer. The statement about County Attorney Bill McNally takes the cake. You stated he was an unheralded sixth commissioner who "has written a lot of ordinances and made a lot of decisions on water line locations and reservoirs and whispered into a lot of commissioners' ears" in the last 20 years, adding, "Since we already have an unelected lawyer on the county commission, do we really need another attorney there?" Bill NcNally is where he is because the commissioners want him there. They could fire him tomorrow. The "writing a lot of ordinances" reflects a lawyer's role as a scrivener, similar to what the General Assembly's legislative counsel does. The whispering in the ears reflects the counselor's role, because lawyers provide advice to their clients about the legal implications of what they propose to do. For the advice to remain confidential, it is sometimes necessary to whisper when other people are present. I don't know about the water lines and reservoirs, but I suspect Bill McNally simply told the commissioners where it would be legal to put them. For the county attorney to have lasted 20 years means he has satisfied a lot of different commissioners over the years. A county commissioner trained in the law would be better able than anyone else to make an independent assessment of the quality of the advice and services provided by the county attorney. Right now, the commissioners have to take the county attorney's word. Thus, if you think Bill McNally has too much influence on the county commission, the way to reduce it is certainly not by suggesting we avoid electing a lawyer to the county commission. Having a lawyer on the county commission might have its advantages in other ways. For instance, the commissioners might have greater awareness of laws like the Georgia Open Meetings Act, and thus might be less likely to violate them. (They'd have less of an excuse if they did, though ignorance of the law is no excuse.) Also, the county attorney wouldn't have to follow them around like a protective sheepdog, and they could have some meetings without the county attorney present. With a county attorney paid by the hour, that would save the taxpayers money. When land developers would make arguments based on the constitutions of the state of Georgia and of the United States during their rezoning presentations, a commissioner who is a lawyer could readily understand their arguments. With all lay commissioners, developers who don't get their rezonings are more prone to figure the commissioners didn't understand their constitutional arguments, and thus to go to court to find a judge who will. With a lawyer or two on the commission, a developer might appreciate that his odds of winning in court might be less. (Constitutional law is a subject all lawyers study in law school.) Let's face it, somebody who studies law and government for three years full-time, not to mention any experience gained later, is bound to understand the system better, and to function better within it, than some amateur with a slogan and a smile. Public service is a calling for which some people prepare themselves by going to law school. Are we going to hold that against them and, out of pettiness, deny them the opportunity to serve? That's like cutting off our nose to spite our face, isn't? Speaking for myself, I enjoyed every day that I spent in law school. When you learn about the law, you learn about life. You learn about history, you see what people can do, good and bad, and you understand how a civilized society functions, preventing some problems and resolving others. Think just about traffic laws, for a moment, and how they enable us to move around safely. Or contract law, which enables us to rely on the promises of others. Or criminal law, which strives to protect us from antisocial elements. Best of all, a lawyer is better able to speak up for the little guy, if he's so inclined, and to speak up for the truth, which I am endeavoring to do right now. Acting upon her dream to become a lawyer, our own Commissioner Linda Wells attended law school a few years ago, and I was sorry she did not complete what she started. Are you suggesting her fitness for public office would have been diminished had she gone on to graduate and pass the bar? I am prepared to say that for all the law courses she took she's a better public official today. I doubt there is a single parent in all of Fayette County who would be ashamed of seeing his son or daughter go to law school and become a lawyer. At the very least, they'd be happy to get somebody in the family to get some free advice from. It's a difficult career, and like athletes in competition lawyers can suffer setbacks, from time to time. The two lawyers who ran for the county commission deserve our praise for their willingness to serve, and they would have brought fine qualities to our Board of Commissioners precisely because they were lawyers. If their decision to become lawyers and offer for elective office was inspired by some measure of idealism, it was cruel to suggest that one precludes the other. And, to be frank, it wasn't smart either. Tell the children of this county that it's alright to study law and become a lawyer, to crusade for truth, justice, and good government, and to run for public office. It's part of the American dream, and it will keep living on. Claude Y. Paquin Fayetteville cypaquin@msn.com
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