Wednesday, April 2, 2008

GOP Seeks Drinking Law Exception


Today’s New York Times reported that the Republican Party has asked St. Paul, MN, officials to keep the city’s bars open two hours longer than normal, from 2 to 4 AM—for the eleven days preceding, during, and after the September Republican national convention this fall.
Read more from original article: Let’s Par-Tay Till 4 A.M.
This news item appears on this blog because of the author’s experience with holier-than-thou piousness commonly assumed by prosecutors of the Republican persuasion in Bay Area superior courts when talking to the judges about my DUI clients. [Ok, some of these deputy D.A.s are Democrats, but not many.]

Republican hypocrisy among northern CA district attorneys is so blatant in the sex crimes and child porn area of my practice I barely take note. But drinking until almost sunup while taking responsibility for electing the leader of the free world?

The GOP thinks it so important that their delegates be allowed to drink almost all night that they ask the convention host city to make an exception of long-established booze laws during this world-important event?

Time and time again I have heard a deputy DA appearing in my San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Napa, San Mateo or Santa Clara county DUI cases go on and on and on about how everyone knows the dangers of drinking and driving.

I realize there are taxis available at 2 AM in St. Paul (there are, aren’t they?), but somehow this news item really grated on me as someone defending DUI cases on a regular basis.

I guarantee you that one or more of those GOP delegates will drive drunk in St. Paul during 2 and 4 AM between September 1 and September 11, 2008, due in part to the exception to the MN law that the GOP has requested.

Most likely no GOP delegate(s) will get stopped for driving drunk (statistically less than .09% of drunk drivers actually do get stopped) but still . . .

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