Common Sense. v. Denver
On Wednesday, Colorado Governor Bill Owens signed into law House Bill 04-1279, which prohibits BSL. [No, not this kind of BSL, this kind. Ed.] This should end once and for all the City of Denver’s odious practice of murdering 400 pit bulls a year simply for being pit bulls. Note that I said “should,” and not “will.” Rather than accept the fact that Colorado is a state and Denver isn’t, the City Council has decided to sue the state to overturn the ban on breed bans. City Councilwoman Rosemary Rodridguez non-explains their decision thusly:
“We want to preserve our right to run Denver,” said Rosemary Rodriguez, one of 10 council members sponsoring the resolution. “The legislation signed into law is forcing us into this position.”
Silly me, I didn’t realize that the Denver City Council was “forced” to challenge anything. I guess that accepting a legislative defeat is off the table. But if Rodriguez’s statement was dumb, Ass. City Attorney Kory Nelson’s was even dumberer. The city estimates there are 4,500 pit bulls kept illegally in the city, which accounted for only 2% of the 655 dog biting incidents last year, none of which were fatal. From this, Mr. Nelson brilliantly concludes that:
The fact we haven’t had fatal attacks in years indicates it may be working.
Um, yeah, that’s it. By that logic, this blog has done a tremendous job of keeping elephants out of my office. In the year and half that I’ve been blogging, I haven’t encountered a single elephant.
One final piece of irony: the sponsor of Colorado’s new breed ban ban is Debbie Stafford. Given the close similarity between her name and that of the targeted breeds, one has to wonder if she took Denver’s ordinance personally.
Thanks to Boi From Troy for the tip and the link.
April 23rd, 2004 at 2:29 pm
It’s been a while since I’ve practiced municipal law, but I believe this suit will go nowhere. In Illinois, at least, a city can’t sue the state. Period. Cities exist only by virtue of the powers that the state provides. If the state wants to take powers away, the city has nothing to say about it. Put another way, states are sovereign; cities are not.
At least that’s the way I remember Illinois law. I’d expect Colorado to be the same.
April 23rd, 2004 at 2:48 pm
I’ve never practiced municipal law; I’m one of those transactional/regulatory types who has “never lost a case.” I’m not even sure that home rule exists as a concept in California or Arizona, where I’m admitted. It does seem like a “hail Mary” of an argument, unless home rule is somehow encoded in the Colorado constitution.
April 23rd, 2004 at 6:50 pm
I thought the law exempted cities with populations greater than 400,000 (i.e., Denver)?
April 23rd, 2004 at 6:55 pm
Co. BSL Update
Xrlq alerts us that Colorado’s Governor signed a bill into law banning Breed Specific Legislation. Good news! Denver, content to continue murdering 400 innocent animals…
April 23rd, 2004 at 9:08 pm
This interim version would have exempted Denver (see Section 18-9-204.5(c) on p. 5). Fortunately, however, the final version did not contain that exemption, and in its place contains a specific directive to save the dogs that were on death row with the bill was signed into law on Wednesday.