Everyone already knows that our favorite theocrat, former Alabama Supreme Court justice Roy Moore, is weighing a run for president. What I didn’t know is that one of his lawyers has political ambitions of his own.
The AP reported late last week that Phillip Jauregui, a Birmingham attorney representing ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore, told reporters that he is considering running in the GOP primary against Rep. Spencer Bachus of Birmingham.
“Judges are making law and destroying the Constitution, and Congress is watching the courts do it and doing nothing about it,” Jauregui said Wednesday.
“We have had a Republican majority in Congress since 1994, and the problem is getting worse,” he said.
I have to give Jauregui credit for creativity. I’ve heard of lawyers parlaying success in the courtroom into a successful political career, but this guy wants to turn embarrassing failure into political gold.
This is so transparently silly, it’s hard to know where to start, but let’s focus on just two parts of Jauregui’s bizarre aspirations.
First is the idea of capitalizing on Moore’s popularity. This makes some sense in Alabama, where the lunatic theocrat has a following. But more important is the idea that Jauregui is “Moore’s attorney,” as the AP described him. That’s true, but it’s not the whole story.
Jauregui is representing Moore in his futile quest to overturn his ethics conviction and reassume his position on the state bench. Jauregui was not, however, the attorney for the case of “Roy’s Rock,” the 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments that garnered international attention. In this high profile matter, Moore’s attorney was Herb Titus, a lawyer popular with the religious right.
It’s understandable that Jauregui would want to take advantage of Moore’s cult status, but the guy really hasn’t even done anything of any significance. Jauregui is effectively considering a run for Congress based on his brief handling of a procedural matter that hasn’t gone anywhere and which the real attorneys didn’t want to waste their time on. Not much of a platform.
Second is Jauregui’s suggestion that Bachus is part of the problem in Washington. Don’t get me wrong; Bachus is as right wing as anyone in the House and his voting record is extreme on every area of public policy.
And that’s just the point. Would Jauregui have us believe that he’d be a more reliable champion of conservative causes in the House that Bachus? That’s unlikely.
I’m sure everyone who ever had any connection to Moore are hoping to exploit the association, but this one’s weak, even by Alabama standards.