When an ideologically divided Mississippi Supreme Court votes unanimously against your case, you know you didn’t have one.
That’s the clear message being sent to Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who received an 8-0 drubbing from the state’s highest court last week in his effort to fabricate a new veto power.
Lumumba, during his ongoing battles with the Jackson City Council over a garbage collection contract, tried out his novel but absurd legal theory. He maintained that he had the power to veto not only an affirmative vote taken by the council but also a negative vote. Even though council members had repeatedly voted against awarding the garbage contract to the vendor the mayor favored, Lumumba said he could use his veto power to override them and put the contract into place anyway.
Such action, if allowed, would essentially give the mayor legislative as well as executive power, a clear violation of the constitutional separation-of-powers provision. Just think of the possible mischief that could cause. Most anything the mayor wanted he could “veto” into passage, dramatically increasing his power and shrinking that of the council members.
The Supreme Court, not surprisingly, would have none of that. It upheld a lower court’s ruling that since the Jackson City Council had not approved the garbage contract, there was nothing for the mayor to veto.
The case was a waste of the court’s time and of the Jackson taxpayers’ money, who had to foot the bill of paying lawyers on both sides to present their arguments. Only one of those arguments — the winning one — could be made with a straight face.
