A Scott County judge has injected some long overdue commonsense into the fight over the City of Davenport’s cynical effort to keep secret the details of its $1.6 million payment to former City Administrator Corri Spiegel.
Scott County District Judge Henry Latham ruled Wednesday the Iowa Freedom of Information Council has a right to intervene in the city’s suit asking a judge to determine whether Spiegel’s letter alleging harassment and asking for money is a public record.
The city claimed in court papers that it wanted a judge to decide the question—and that it took no position on the matter. Yet, it tried to exclude the organization perhaps best positioned in this case to argue for openness, the FOIC, from taking part. This, all the while knowing that the defendant the city handpicked for the suit, David Ezra Sidran, is not a lawyer and is representing himself.
This hardly seemed fair. Nor the position of somebody who isn’t … well, taking a position.
If this were a prizefight, you’d have to say the city was trying to tie its opponent’s hands behind his back, all the while claiming the fight wasn’t fixed.
Fortunately, Latham was having none of it. His ruling allows FOIC to take part. Which at least makes it a fair contest. The council is one of the state’s top open- government advocates and having it in court to argue the Spiegel letter is a public document will ensure its interests, and the public’s, are represented. The city certainly isn’t taking on that role.
The judge’s decision is thoroughly logical.
The Quad-City Times, like Sidran, has asked for the Spiegel document, and the Times is a member of the FOIC. So, it seems logical that the FOIC has an interest in the case.
The city couldn’t see this logic. Its lawyers said, somewhat incredulously: “So, the argument goes, because its members have an interest in securing the release of the letter, presto FOIC now has an interest and, FOIC magically becomes a ‘real party in interest in this litigation and has a clear and direct interest in the subject matter of this litigation and outcome.’”
To which the judge replied: “Correct.”
Somebody at FOIC ought to thank the city for stating the argument so succinctly.
The judge also went on to say that former city employees Tiffany Thorndike and Samantha Torres—who also alleged harassment and received settlement payments from the city—don’t have a right to intervene.
Now, presumably, the next question to be considered is whether the record should be public.
I suspect this may be a more difficult question to answer. But the public’s ability to see Spiegel’s letter is vital if we’re to get answers to some of the outstanding questions about the council’s decision last year to pay her all that taxpayer money. The council continues to remain mum about its actions, which were taken a month before the 2023 elections and then kept under wraps until afterward.
I remain hopeful that we’ll see Spiegel’s letter. But the letter shouldn’t be the end of the public disclosure in this case. What I also hope, perhaps naively, is the parties to this deal will realize their conspiracy of silence is not in the public’s interest, nor in theirs.
Restrain yourselves!
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m not a lawyer. But I am familiar with the words, “judicial restraint.”
Coming of age in the Reagan years, I got used to hearing these words from conservative politicians, who often followed them with the phrase “activist judge.” As in, “I want somebody for the courts who is going to exercise judicial restraint, not some activist judge.”
So, imagine my shock that a number of Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court would dismiss the idea they should just stick to the facts central to Donald Trump’s contention that he has immunity from criminal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Instead, during oral arguments on the question Thursday, the justices made clear that they weren’t limiting themselves to the issues pertaining to the Trump case. One even said he wasn’t all that concerned about the issues in the case. Justice Neil Gorsuch said, “we’re writing a rule for the ages.”
Which is probably why most of the arguments Thursday centered on hypotheticals and a range of dystopian future possibilities should presidents be forced to do what the rest of us do every day: Follow the damned law!
Yes, the case is more complicated than that. But should it be much more complicated than that?
The legal analysis I’ve seen so far suggests that few, if any, of the justices bought the argument that a president should be broadly immune from criminal prosecution like Trump has asked. Even the much-discussed hypothetical that a president could order a rival who he considered corrupt killed, which a Trump lawyer entertained Thursday, didn’t seem to gain much purchase.
By the way, the idea such a prospect could be actually uttered in the highest court in the land and not be dismissed as absurd tells me that some lawyers operate on a far different plane (or planet) than the rest of us.
Now the question legal types are debating is when the justice’s ruling will come and whether it will necessitate more lawyering in the lower court, thus pushing a trial past Election Day.
Politically, this is a key question. I get that. But it bewilders me that the court doesn’t just decide the case before it: Does Trump have immunity covering the criminal acts he’s alleged to have committed or not?
Let the ages take care of themselves. We’ve been able to run this country for 200-plus years without parsing this question for the ages. Why now? Other than that Donald Trump is demanding it.
To me, such an approach would be the very definition of judicial restraint. And isn’t that the North Star for conservative lawyers and judges? We’ll see if it is. Or if the justices make an exception. For Donald Trump.
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From the last paragraph: "Or if the justices make an exception. For Donald Trump."
I see it as the reverse: justices are signaling regular order which calls for a decision in June thus ignoring the political maelstrom; an immediate decision would be the real "exception".