A nonprofit government watchdog is asking a federal appellate court to bar District of Columbia officials from spending tax dollars under a budget measure previously declared unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan.
Judicial Watch filed its motion Tuesday to intervene in the case on behalf of Clarice Feldman, a longtime D.C. resident.
The case revolves around a measure passed by the D.C. Council and signed by then-Mayor Vincent Gray, the Local Budget Autonomy Act of 2012. Gray reversed himself and declined to enforce the law after being advised by then-D.C. attorney General Irvin Nathan that it was unconstitutional.
The council then filed suit in federal court to compel Gray to enforce the law, but Judge Sullivan disagreed, ruling that “Mayor Vincent C. Gray, CFO Jeffrey S. DeWitt, the Council of the District of Columbia, its officers, agents, servants, employees and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the injunction, are hereby permanently enjoined from enforcing the [law] pending further order of this Court ….”
Gray’s successor, Mayor Muriel Bowser, voted for the measure as a member of the council and supports its appeal to the higher court.
Sullivan made clear in his decision that he supports the principle of budget autonomy for D.C., but the measure approved by the council “is contrary to the plain language of the Home Rule Act, which prohibits the Council from changing the role of the federal government in the appropriation of the total budget of the District.”
The measure also “cannot be reconciled with the legislative history of the Home Rule Act, during which Congress explicitly considered, and rejected, budget autonomy for the District. And it violates a separate federal statute, the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits District employees from spending public money unless it has been appropriated by Congress,” Sullivan said.
The Home Rule Act was approved by Congress and signed by President Nixon in 1973. The Antideficiency Act has been on the books since the Civil War and it provides substantial criminal and civil penalties for federal and D.C. government employees from spending tax funds without congressional approval.
Virginia attorney Mark Fitzgibbons, co-author with Richard Viguerie of The Law That Governs Government: Reclaiming The Constitution From Usurpers And Society’s Biggest Lawbreaker, said the case highlights a problem that gets too little attention in the media.
“The rule of law is based on government not merely upholding, but following the law. When citizens don’t follow laws that are inconvenient or disagreeable, they are nevertheless lawbreakers. This is but one example that government is society’s most consistent lawbreaker,” Fitzgibbons said.
The case could also become an encouragement to other officials to ignore the Antideficiency Act, he said, depending upon how the Department of Justice responds to the appellate court’s decision.
“If DoJ were to issue regulatory guidelines about when it will and will not enforce this law, that would be treated as having some force of law,” he said.
Go here for more on the case from Judicial Watch.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
