Jerry Dahl, an attorney employed by the Elbert County Community and Development Services Department, advises the public about his stance on county oil and gas regulation, at the Planning Commission meeting last night, 1/26/2012.

Audio here: Jerry Dahl at EC Planning Comm 1_26_2012.wmv

It is reasonable to conclude from his remarks that Mr. Dahl is promoting a county “right” to further regulate oil and gas development, and that he foresees the need for the county to litigate the question.

As an attorney Mr. Dahl represents his client’s interest, and the client is Richard Miller, the director of the Community and Development Services Department.  Mr. Miller introduced Mr. Dahl and it is fair to conclude that Mr. Dahl accurately represented Mr. Miller’s interest.

So, the director of planning wants to regulate oil and gas development at the county level, and he’s hired an adversarial attorney who shares that interest.

And who are the people to be regulated by these forces?  You and me.  The county has an attorney sworn to zealously defend their interest, because all attorneys take an oath to zealously defend their clients’ interests, against you and me.

Should our tax money be used to fund an adversarial legal process that is aimed at us?

From the ACLU 50-State Survey for January of 2012:

• Access to abortion and birth control. [Must keep killing babies.]
• Equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered. [Must treat those who display sexual preference the same as those who do not.]
• Protection against racial profiling and discrimination by law enforcement. [Must not profile those most likely to commit terrorism.]
• Equal access for eligible residents to vote. [As opposed to citizens.]
• Non-preferential treatment of any one religion by the government. [Except Islam.]
• Preventing the teaching of creationism and intelligent design from interfering with the teaching of evolution in public school science classes. [When government sanctions a theory it must be protected.  See global warming.]

Let’s see: infant death and dismemberment, sexual obsession, terrorism, illegal aliens, Sharia, spurious government science.  That’s an impressive series of harmful policies to rack up by one organization in one fund-raising mailer.  How did I get on this nutjob mailing list?  Yeah I’m going to send them a check, where’s my pen?

Thank you American law schools.

Schools For Misrule, pp 150-151

THE “CONTROLLING GROUP”
The standard rap against institutional reform litigation is that it gives too much power to the judge. But in their thorough and devastating book Democracy by Decree, Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod say the larger problem is the power it gives the advocacy groups that control the suits. The public might rail at the judge who signs the decree, but in most cases it will have been private lawyers who drafted most of the decree’s language. (more…)