A Lesson in Government

It seems that our esteemed Attorney General and State Rube Samson doesn't understand the system of checks and balances set up in both the US Constitution and the Mississippi Constitution. So, free of charge, I'm providing this lesson for him. I promise, nobody's going to pay me $14 million for helping, fellow travellers. See, we have three branches of government, Samson. The Executive Branch (that's you, oh folicled one) is charged with enforcing the law. In Mississippi, we have an attorney general that's elected to enforce the law. The second is the legislative branch, which is supposed to write the law that the executive branch enforces. The executive branch's head in Mississippi is weak on purpose; his proclamation power is necessarily weak. The legislative branch holds the power of the purse strings, allocating money as it sees fit (and, admittedly, sometimes it's discretion is a little...um...off-kilter). The last branch is the judicial branch. Their job is to interpret the law and determine punishment when its broken. In a vestige of Jacksonian democracy (that's the guy the city is named for, not the city itself) here in Mississippi almost all of our judges are elected. But here's Samson's problem: He wants to be in all three branches at once. See, he's already charged with enforcing the law. But that's not enough for the State Rube (who doesn't know if federal law or rulings of a federal judges applies in our fair state. Um, check the US Constitution's Supremacy Clause for that one). But, Samson wants to be in the Judicial branch too, as you can tell by his constant issuing of "Attorney General's Opinions," in which he and his predecessor sought to interpret the law in the stead of a judge. Admittedly, this is within his job as the state's lawyer-though neither he nor his predecessor sought so much responsibility in this function of the office when it didn't suit them. Lastly, he's taken upon himself to award monies that are rightfully the state's to third parties, such as The Partnership for a Healthy Mike Moore. That, as we've already seen, is the purview of the Legislative branch. You know, for someone who supposedly knows the law, Samson sure doesn't seem to understand how our system works. Especially the parts about checks and balances and separation of powers. But hey-he does have lots of hair, and the Daily Journal sure likes him a lot. I guess that makes up for messing up cliches. But remember, Jimmy, if you didn't have a D by your name, Marty Russell would make fun of your intelligence.