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ESA Wants Money From Illinois
ESA President Doug Lowenstein is pushing the state of Illinois to pay for the ESA's substantial legal bills, the result of their fight to defeat the Illinois game ban. From the Next Generation article: "From the day Governor Blagojevich announced that he would seek anti-video game legislation, it was clear to everyone that the proposal would be found unconstitutional and would waste taxpayers dollars in a protracted legal fight that would leave parents no better off ... That is precisely what happened. As we said from the outset, we would have preferred to spend our resources on cooperative programs to help parents ensure their kids play appropriate games, rather than divert money to respond to politically motivated attacks on video games. But the State has left little choice, and this petition is consistent with the rules of the federal courts regarding award of attorney's fees to prevailing parties."
I sympathize with ESA's substantive postion, but: it's a bad idea for the courts to award legal fees for overturning laws passed by the people's legislature.
That's bad for democracy.
Of course, I REALLY would like my legal fees to be paid for overturning the laws that I know to be bad. That would be fair, right, just and valid! But I do not want people I disagree with to get the same sort of fees for overturning laws that I know are good.
Democracy is messy. ESA may deserve to win, but does not deserve to win without paying the price.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Actually, I'd like to see a federal law where if you propose an unconstitutional law, or vote for enough of them, you are banned completely from politics.