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August 8, 2007

Democrats challenge Carcieri on 'right-wing' lawyer

The state Democrats' chairman is seeking under the Freedom of Information Act whether taxpayers have paid for a "right-wing" lawyer's services in a court case that could decide if a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts could divorce in Rhode Island.

Chairman William Lynch said in a news release he filed the request with the Carcieri administration today about lawyer James Bopp Jr. Lynch said if taxpayers have footed the bill, he wants to know for how much.

"Jim Bopp has made a living representing the narrow-minded ideology of people like Tom DeLay, and I’m sure he doesn’t come cheap. I think the taxpayers have a right to know if they’re paying the legal bills of this right-wing Republican lawyer, whose only role appears to be that of advocating the governor’s personal and political point of view,” Lynch said in the statement.

The governor's office says it will respond this afternoon.

The Supreme Court had invited state officials and interested parties to file friend-of-the court briefs by last week's deadline. The responses included briefs from the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marriage Law Foundation.

Governor Carcieri, a Republican, and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, a Democrat -- William Lynch's brother -- agreed in legal briefs submitted to the state Supreme Court last week that a state court can grant two Providence women a divorce without answering the highly charged question of whether a same-sex marriage performed in Massachusetts should be recognized in Rhode Island,

However, Carcieri and Patrick Lynch differed over what the case's outcome should be if the high court does take up the larger issue.

Carcieri, a Republican and a Catholic who has opposed bills to legalize same-sex marriage, argued that Family Court should not recognize the marriage between Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston.

"Marriage as a legal union of one man and one woman is clearly the bedrock of Rhode Island family law," Carcieri's brief said, citing gender-specific terms such as "husband and wife" in state law. "Because of the pervasiveness of this position throughout its family law statutes, Rhode Island has a strong public policy against recognition of any other marriage than that between one man and one woman."

Lynch, a Democrat and a Catholic who has a sister who married a woman in Massachusetts, argued that Family Court should recognize the Chambers/Ormiston marriage under principles of comity, in which states recognize the laws and judicial decisions of other states.

"The crucial issue is whether there is a public policy in this state that is so strong it will require Rhode Island to except same-sex marriages from the traditional respect and recognition it has shown to laws of its sister states," Lynch's brief said. "Rhode Island's case law and legislative enactments do not support such a finding."

Asserting that Carcieri "holds no known legal standing in the case of Chambers v. Ormiston," Lynch wants to know if the governor billed the state for legal services "to advocate what is clearly a personal and politically-motivated opposition to marriages of same sex spouses."

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with Journal archival reports

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 1:44 PM | Permalink

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kristen | August 8, 2007 3:32 PM link

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