Just Another Post-Partisan Monarch

by dday

Or perhaps, just another spoiled little rich man who is disinterested in complying with the rule of law:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg invoked a rarely used power today not to enforce a law he deems illegal, saying he would ignore an electronic recycling bill passed by the City Council this week if his planned veto is overridden.

The mayor, on his weekly radio program on WABC-AM (770), said the bill as currently written is “totally illegal.”

“We will not enforce it,” he said. “And we don’t have to enforce it because it violates a whole bunch of federal laws on interstate commerce.”

The threat evokes the much-debated use of so-called “signing statements” by the Bush administration. In a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe showed how the president has used hundreds of these statements to disobey laws passed by Congress on issues ranging from military rules and regulations to affirmative action.

In 2006, the Bloomberg administration won a battle in the state’s highest court saying the mayor does not have to enforce a law he deems to be unconstitutional. That legal fight was waged over a 2004 law passed by the City Council, after overriding the mayor’s veto, that would have required private companies that contract with the city to provide the same health care and other benefits they extend to married couples to domestic partners.

Isn’t the whole Bloomberg appeal supposed to be that whole “liberal on social issues and the environment” thing?

Sounds to me like Bloomberg’s idea of “getting along and working together to solve problems” is identical to the current resident of the White House.

(and actually, the real problem here is the NY State Supreme Court agreeing that the mayor can ignore any law he decides is unconstitutional. That passed a legal test? Are you kidding me?)

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