Open letter to Jon Corzine

Note: lest I be chalked up as some sort of partisan hack, please note that I am an equal-opportunity jerk. Before any detractors suggest that I was a complete sarcastic dick in my letter to Bill Frist and relatively cordial in my letter to Corzine... you're right. Part of it was the fact that I really respect Corzine for (among other things) his pushing of legislation to pressure Darfur. Part of it is my disrespect for (among other things) Frist's short-sighted support of the "nuclear option" on judicial nominations. Part of it is that I just don't have the time or energy today.

Dear Senator Corzine,

I am a past supporter of yours who is considering a voting for you for governor in the fall, but I must say that I was disappointed by your support for the recently-passed legislation modifying the legal process for Terri Schiavo. Even ignoring the moral questions involved – and we must, since none of us are privy to the full information that was available only to those most intimately involved – for Congress to pass a law aimed at one situation is fundamentally unjust. I consider you a man of principal but cannot understand how you came to support this legislation.

Certainly, no system of justice is perfect, and ours is all in all among the best by any measure. If you find our current federal laws covering related issues problematic, I do truly hope that you seek to modify them. But granting special rights to some people and not others is akin to this administration’s imprisonment of “enemy combatants” under rules invented specifically for what they consider to be situations never envisioned by our founders. A quote (I believe attributed to John Adams) has surfaced quite a bit in recent days, but still I feel it necessary to reiterate that we are “a nation of laws, not men.”

Senator, you are in a better position than most to affect the pursuit of justice in America. If the rules are unfair for some, please see to it that they are changed. But you know as well as I do that this is impossible to do on a case-by-case basis. I didn’t read any statements from you in the newspaper when my own grandmother was on her deathbed two years ago, although certainly there were complicated moral and legal issues in the air then as well. And more than I am upset by Terri Schiavo’s condition, or sympathetic for her husband and parents as they have endured years of agonizing struggles, I resent that a woman’s life has become a political football.

Sincerely,
Mark Zipkin

Open Letter to Bill Frist

Dear Dr. Frist,

I have been following the legislative case for Terry Schiavo and wanted to thank you for all of your support. I feel that I have a lot in common with the southern, conservative Christian movement of which you are a leader – I mean, I’m a liberal Jew from the Northeast. OK, not sure where I was going with that.

Still, I have to respect a man who stands on principal alone. As a stereotypical socialist-commie-leftie, I have been waiting and waiting for government to solve all of my problems. I’m sure you know how that’s been going recently. Anyway, I’m so excited now to hear about government’s sudden interest not just in the personal lives of its citizens, but even the most intimate details of specific private individuals.

Someone tried to tell me today that it wasn’t the job of Congress to get involved in legislating specific cases, particularly ones that involve private family issues that have nonetheless been adjudicated in courts of law for years, and have finally come to a conclusion. This friend of mine told me that if Congress were to write a law that was so specifically designed that its intended subjects – er, I mean, citizen – were referred to by name, it would be a clear violation of the Framers’ intent to constitutionally mandate a separation of powers. I stopped my friend right there, because I had to remind my friend that no one could rise to the rank of Senate Majority Leader without a clear understanding of what his or her constitutional role would be in shaping the government. And besides, Bill Frist is a man of principal.

I reminded my friend of the role you have had in advancing good judges to the federal court, people without any discernable ideological agenda, unlike those “activist judges” who have pushed radical changes like ending segregation, promoting gay marriage, or advancing abortion rights for women with their willy-nilly claims about equal rights under the constitution. I so easily convinced him that your interest in seeing jurists reach the bench who acted independent of political winds was plenty of evidence that you would never attempt to overstep the strictures of your position to score political points.

I just feel lucky that we had a medical doctor in the Senate to help us sort through the some of the confusing issues involved in this particular case. Sure, it might be tough keeping up with the latest complicated aspects of medicine, particularly the ones you had never specialized in, while one is serving in the Senate – but heck, what could really happen in a decade anyway? I am really glad you were able to so thoroughly evaluate the evidence, even from a distance and based on some tapes that were circulating on the Internet, and come to your firm conclusion that contrasted what those ridiculously biased specialists who studied Mrs. Schiavo firsthand for the past few years had suggested.

And can you believe this woman’s husband? He’s like some kind of animal, wanting to move on with his life after only 15 years. I’m sure it was a really easy decision for a craven beast like himself to forego the sums of money his in-laws offered and fight a very public, decade-long legal battle to respect his wife’s wishes. Actually, Dr. Frist, this brings me to the reason for my letter. Since you take such a personal interest in the individual lives of the citizens of this country, even those who are not your constituents, I thought you could help me out. I considered contacting my own senators about this, but their records do not suggest they would be nearly as helpful as you.

A few weeks back I got a parking ticket. The thing is, I got home late and the only spot available was in front of this hydrant, and I knew it was wrong and a little illegal but what’s a guy to do, you know? Anyway, I thought you could just push a little bill through that exonerates me from it. I promise, I won’t do it again.

Now, I know that you’re thinking this might not really be fair to the other people out there who have to pay their tickets. And you’re also probably considering the energy you’d have to expend to put this thing together – the man hours your staff would waste crafting legislation. I guess you’re used to having lobbyists put it all together for you. You’ll be happy to know that I formed my own lobby, the Mark Zipkin Parking Ticket Inequity Lobby (MZPTIL), and I’m hoping to open an office on K Street next month. In the mean time, I’ve already been hard at work on the language, I modeled it after the Schiavo thing, hope you don’t mind. Perhaps you can just slip into an appropriations bill or tack it onto the Bankruptcy one? No one who matters is looking.

“For the relief of the Mark David Zipkin. . . .

“The United States District Court for central New Jersey shall have jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on a suit or claim by or on behalf of Mark Zipkin for the alleged violation of any right of Mark Zipkin under the Constitution or laws of the United States relating to the giving of a stupid friggin’ parking ticket to him.

“Any person who is Mark David Zipkin shall have standing to bring a suit under this Act. . . . The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted.”

Thanks so much Senator Doctor Bill, you’re a peach.

Sincerely,

Mark Zipkin, I-NJ