Trump comments threaten rule of law
We have observed the rule of law sustained at the highest
level of government through many examples. Those include the use of the
military by President Eisenhower to implement the integration of Central High
School in Little Rock, Ark. (1957), and the adherence of President Nixon to the
Supreme Court rulings concerning the Watergate tapes. The current statements of
Donald Trump concerning federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel are a far greater
threat to the rule of law in America than has ever been experienced before
because Trump is a potential president. It is clear Trump’s statements have no
foundation in law or fact.
Trump does not care what the law is and is speaking without
the agreement or support of his own lawyers. His view is all that matters to
him. The law, the courts, his lawyers are meaningless to him. Thus, the rule of
law is irrelevant to him. We appeal to the American Bar Association and our
State Bar not just to express concern, but to create an organizational
opposition to his position to educate the public. As the saying goes, now is
not the time for good people to do nothing.
Michael H. Miller
Stephanie R. Scher
Los Angeles
Editor’s note: A number of voluntary bar associations
have taken a position on this issue including the Bar Association of
San Francisco and the New York State Bar Association.
Under Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990), the State Bar may
not, under the First Amendment, use mandatory dues to support activities of an
ideological or political nature which fall outside of regulating the legal
profession and improving the quality of legal services.
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