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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."
ESA = Entertainment Software Association. Their Website: http://www.theesa.com/
nothing
Absolutely. You want to pass obviously unconstitutional legislation? Your consitutents can pay the bills. After enough money down the tube, perhaps they'll think twice before electing you again.
I live in Illinois, and we're a damn poor state. The politicians can't have a press conference without saying something about how far in debt we are. That said, I'm not sure what side of this I'm on. Our governor was a total idiot for introducing the bill in the first place, and the ESA is right that most of the time when someone loses a lawsuit they have to pay the legal fees associated with the case... but we've already wasted taxpayer dollars on the bill itself and the court costs. Now they're asking for more money. I guess my state just needs to learn how to not be stupid.
Spend all of the ILL Govt's money defending no-win lawsuits, so they can't afford any further investigations of corruption into his office. Brilliant!!
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 -
Consider the hypothetical case where YOU were the personal victim of an unconsitutional law, and spent lots of your $$ defeating it in court. Now you're out lots of YOUR money because the state did something illegal. What's to prevent them from doing it again and again 'till you're destitute and can no longer afford to fight and win, or until you give up and accept the unconstitutional law to remain solvent? Either way, the state accomplishes by attrition what they cannot do under law.
As for the obviousness argument, it's irrelevant just how obviously bad the law is -- you either have to sue and spend what it takes to finish the litigation, or shut up and accept the bad law; there's no third option.
The award of attorney's fees paid by the loser makes it untenable to pursue such a win-by-losing strategy -- or at least, it's intended to do that. Think of it as a check on frivolous litigation (and lawmaking, if the principle is, IMHO reasonably, applied to situations like this).
It IS a shame that the state's taxpayers have to pay for their government's folly, but then, they DID elect those folks in the first place. That seems a lesser ill than the above scenario where the victim pays for it. (And no, it DOESN'T matter that the victim is a trade organization and not an individual; the fundamentals don't change.) Out wit da bums...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."