hr 2679

I can't find a copy of the bill on the net but if I am understanding it correctly the purpose of it is to prohibit courts from awarding attorney's fees to plainiffs who bring suit against the goverment on cases involving the "establishment clause" which in layterms means that the goverment would not be liable for attorney's fees in cases of seperation of church and state issues.

The stategy in my understanding is to make seperation of church and state a plainiff expense as opposed to a goverment expense even if the goverement created the expense by violating a church/state mandiate.

Personally, if the state is CREATING court expenses by inducing mandated religion into goverment (which is a violation of the establishment clause), the goverment is in reality liable by making the expense in the first place. The establishment clause exists for a good reason and promoting legislation that invokes civil suits by the commuinty for violating is a goverment-incurred expense.

How do you feel about hr 2679 and should the goverment budgets be held financially liable for church-state violations? The last link in the footnotes lists the congressmen/women on the committee.

footnotes
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.2679:
http://positiveliberty.com/2006/06/stop-hr-2679.html
http://www.secular.org/activism/pera06.html

You know, I believe that the Federal/State government funds should not be used to pay attorney fees. I don't think that my tax dollars should be used to pay for violations of the constitution by our leaders.
I believe, instead, that the attorney/court fees should be paid by the members of congress that voted for the bill, and the president that signed the bill into law, from their own pockets; not mine.
The benefit of the congress members having to pay out of their own pockets will have an added benefit of them actually considering the consequences of their actions, at least for themselves anyway, and should decrease the number of times laws are passed that violate the constitution.

So to answer the question in the last line: I think that HR 2679 is a load of crap. It is something that the religious nutcases want passed so that the majority of the general public will be completely unable, monetarily, to afford pursuing legal action when there is a violation of the establishment clause.
This bill should not be passed, however as I stated earlier, the government budget should not be effected in any way. The members of the Senate and House that voted for it, and the president that signed it should be responsible for the fees.

Here's the actual bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

That link doesn't seem to be working.


This bill is not unique to the church/state situation. There are many bills affording the government protection where it normally wouldn't exist in civil and perhaps even criminal cases.

update on bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.02679:

as of 9/7 voice vote for amendment. Rest on link.