{"id":5361,"date":"2005-09-27T10:08:18","date_gmt":"2005-09-27T14:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5361"},"modified":"2005-09-27T10:08:18","modified_gmt":"2005-09-27T14:08:18","slug":"congress-probably-wishes-it-had-one-of-these","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/congress-probably-wishes-it-had-one-of-these\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress probably wishes it had one of these"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s plenty of bizarre stories about Republican antics in DC, but to get to the real jaw-droppers you sometimes have to look at the state level. For example, consider this remarkable story<\/a> of a Georgia lawmaker who wants immunity from a DUI charge because he’s a member of the state legislature. (thanks to Phil for the tip)<\/p>\n

After Rep. David Graves was charged with drunken driving for a second time, he and his lawyer offered a surprising defense:<\/p>\n

As a lawmaker, Graves cannot break the law — at least not while the Legislature is at work.<\/p>\n

The Macon Republican is using an obscure provision in the state constitution to argue that he should not be prosecuted for a DUI he received in Cobb County in February, during the 2005 session of the General Assembly.<\/p>\n

The centuries-old provision holds that a lawmaker cannot be arrested during sessions of the General Assembly, legislative committee meetings or while they’re “in transit,” except in cases of “treason, felony, or breach of the peace.” Such provisions were generally written to protect lawmakers from political intimidation.<\/p>\n

Cobb State Court Judge Irma B. Glover is expected to make public her ruling today on Graves’ “legislative immunity” defense. His trial is set for today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’re truly living in an Era of Responsibility, aren’t we?<\/p>\n

I wonder if, somewhere in DC, lawyers for Tom DeLay (R), Duke Cunningham (R), Bob Ney (R), and Bill Frist (R) are searching through long-discarded provisions of federal law, wondering if similar rules might protect members of Congress, too.
\n
\nPost Script<\/i>: By the way, in case you’re wondering how such an odd law got passed in the first place, it may have made sense in the late 18th century.<\/p>\n

Georgia’s legislative immunity provision has been part of its constitution since 1789. It’s one of many across the country.<\/p>\n

One of the early immunity laws, in Virginia, dates to a 17th-century incident in which the royal governor arrested a lawmaker to keep him from voting, according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have a hunch DUIs weren’t part of the reasoning at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s plenty of bizarre stories about Republican antics in DC, but to get to the real jaw-droppers you sometimes have to look at the state level. For example, consider this remarkable story of a Georgia lawmaker who wants immunity from a DUI charge because he’s a member of the state legislature. (thanks to Phil for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}