Kim Davis makes KY lawmakers question ‘whether county clerks are worth the time and money’

[closeupready]

From Raw Story:

Kim Davis wants Kentucky lawmakers to change the way county clerks issue marriage licenses — but she might not like how that plays out.
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He compared clerks to jailers, another elected office that has been questioned as essential.

Keene said both positions could likely be absorbed by professionals already employed by the state.
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“It may be time to look at whether county clerks are worth the time and money,” Keene said.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/kim-davis-makes-ky-lawmakers-question-whether-county-clerks-are-worth-the-time-and-money/

[Aerows]

1. I just love it

when the law of unintended consequences knocks folks like Kim Davis back into reality.

[closeupready]

2. Yes. People like her will cost jurisdictions mega moolah, and

that's a fact.

[safeinOhio]

24. Think she might miss that 80K/year?

Thank you very much for you service, but you are no longer needed.

[RKP5637]

3. It does make one wonder. For some functions, and I don't want to sound rude, they are

paper pushers. Now, some are very helpful, know the law and do a great job of answering questions, at least here. For marriage licenses, almost of the work is entirely done by the applicants at a Kiosk.

[roguevalley]

8. she just screwed a lot of people out of their jobs. That should make her mucho popular.

the arc of of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

I feel sorry for the fear everyone else is feeling because of her.

[lpbk2713]

4. Obviously not.

If recent events are any indication.

[azmom]

5. Good.

[AzDar]

6. El.Oh.El. While I hate to think of *anyone* losing their job, this bigoted asscrack has already

announced that she deliberately intends to not do her job... anyone else would've been fired five times over.

[Volaris]

11. Then I guess the Federal Marshals can take her back to prison.

[A Little Weird]

7. The county clerks do a lot more than marriage licenses

But it might not be a bad idea to see what kind of things can be centralized by the state. I definitely think it could be a lot more efficient. Kentucky has 120 counties so that's a lot of redundancy that really doesn't need to exist. Jailers and constables should go too.

[IkeRepublican]

9. Oh for the love of god..

Just fire the idiot already. Jeeezus!

You and me and all the rest of us would have been thrown out on our asses long ago at our jobs for acting like this blathering creep.

[localroger]

13. That's kind of the point. They can't fire her because she's an elected official.

So now they're wondering if maybe county clerks need to be elected officials. If she was just a state employee she'd have been out on her can the moment she refused to do her job. If the legislature goes down that road it means she just screwed 140 of her peers out of their cushy jobs, which will probably make her about as popular as herpes.

[oldandhappy]

10. I had a lot of education to make less than

half what she makes. The county clerks in KY are generously compensated -- for following the law!

[RKP5637]

14. Yep, she's making an outrageous amount of money for what she does. It's a cushy job

and generally redundant. Once you get the hang of it a lot of it's repetitive. I'd like to see her out on her ass, she thinks she's special, I've got news for her, there isn't anything special about Kim Davis, other than being a willing stooge so her lawyers make $$$$$'s.

[Lochloosa]

12. Karma

[vanlassie]

15. Well I still don't get why we need permission to get married in the first dang

place. If we want the state to know, we can fill something out on line after the fact. Like taxes.

[Chemisse]

22. Actually, that's a good point.

The whole process is antiquated.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

23. You can do that in Texas. It's called common law marriage.

You can go down and register a Declaration of Common Law Marriage.

At least you can if the woman changes her name. Back in the 1970s in Bexar County I tried to register one and it was refused because I as a female refused to change my name. The old bastard tore up three forms after he pulled them out of the typewriter. I asked him, "Would you please show me in the Texas Family Code where it says I have to change my name?" Crickets. He couldn't, of course, because there is no such statute. He committed a misdemeanor by not registering my attempted common law marriage.

And this was BEFORE I went to law school.

My daddy was a lawyer and he explained to me several times what the requirements of a common law marriage are in Texas. It has nothing to do with "OHMIGOD you're gonna live together and wake up one morning six months later and magically be married!" which was some BS I heard from the in-laws. They thought they were lawyers too and couldn't tell me where it said that in the Texas Family Code either.

[Ghost in the Machine]

25. There was a time, in Georgia, that all you had to was rent a motel room under the name

"Mr. & Mrs. Joe Blow" <~~~ insert real name here, and you were considered married under common law.... or if you lived together for a certain number of years and passed yourselves off as married, such as "Hi, we're your neighbors. I'm Joe and this is my wife Jane".

I think it was back in the early to mid 90's when Georgia quit recognizing common law marriages.

Peace,

Ghost

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. There is a thing called "prior impediments".

Basically, if you're still married to someone else, or underage, you can't just declare yourself common law marriage.

[Ghost in the Machine]

31. Georgia also had a law in the books where a person could be *arrested* for committing adultery..

It was rarely, if ever, enforced when I lived there, but it was still a law.

There are a LOT of old laws still in the books of most States that would shock you. They are obsolete, never enforced, yet technically still the law until they are stricken and removed. Imagine some real small town cop or judge having a beef with someone and harassing them with one of these obsolete, yet still on the books, charges.

What Is Adultery?
Adultery is most commonly defined as sexual intercourse by a married person with another person other than his/her spouse. Some states require that in addition to having sexual relations, the two must also be living together to be guilty of adultery.

Is It a Crime to Commit Adultery?
Yes, adultry is a crime in some states. States such as Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, and Oklahoma still have criminal statutes outlawing adultery.

However, most states today have either abolished these statutes against adultery or will not prosecute people for this crime.

Are Adultery Statutes Constitutional?
Yes. Although most states choose not to prosecute their people for committing adultery, adultery statutes remain valid and constitutional in most cases.

Who May Initiate a Prosecution for Adultery?
Normally it will be the state prosecutor who would initiate a prosecution for adultery. However, some states will allow the spouse of the adulterer to initiate the prosecution.

Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 05-02-2014 06:59 AM PDT

http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/adultery-lawyers.html

That was just a quick Google search, too. There used to be a website dedicated to wacky laws still on the books in many states. I don't know if it is still up or not, and don't feel like doing another Google search for it right now. You are more than welcome to do it, though. I apologize ahead of time if I'm sounding like a smart-ass or something.. that isn't my intention. I have a splitting headache right now, and fixing to stretch out for a bit.

Peace,

Ghost

[NCjack]

16. Maybe it's best to leave the county clerk and office system alone.

Kim Davis was able to jam up only one county. Her attempt to get other county clerks to follow her flopped. What if a right winger gained executive control of all county clerks (or replacement functionaries)? Perhaps the system is working now the best that it can in a democratic system.

[Paladin]

19. Any radical efforts to change the system will be met with powerful resistance.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of three groups: lawyers, real estate, and oil & gas. No sense in trashing a long-effective way of doing things, on account of one religious fanatic---and a losing religious fanatic, at that.

[AlbertCat]

17. LOL!!!!

Good work Kim!

[kairos12]

18. Hire the Clerks from the movie Clerks.

[silvershadow]

20. While some of us may laugh or even scoff, we should actually be wary- just another

right-wing idea to reduce the power of the people to whom it belongs. Less locally elected positions mean more decisions are consolidated upward. I say, hell no! Even in the absurd case of this woman. The proper remedy is recall, if that's what her district wants, or being defeated at the next ballot box.

[ejbr]

21. this backdoor gambit to usurp federal law

can cut both ways. a liberal representative could refuse things too if this wretch gets away with this shit,

[tularetom]

26. Clerks are functionaries with no discretionary authority or responsibility

Everything they do is a ministerial task, that is it requires no decision by them. $80k is a very good salary in a place where the median household income is less than half that, for a paper pusher.

My cousin was the city clerk. She had to attest to all city council minutes, ordinances and resolutions, including municipal bond issues that sometimes ran into millions of dollars. Somehow she got it through her head that
she was actually part of the decision making process instead of just the flunky that kept records. So she informed the city council that she was no longer going to do her job unless she got a big raise (she wasn't asking for anywhere near what Kim Davis was making but it was excessive at the time for what she did). They couldn't fire her because she was elected but they simply eliminated half of her department budget, which effectively meant a pay cut for her. She was so pissed she quit without notice in the middle of her term and moved up to Washington. Of course they replaced her with one of the junior clerks from the finance department until the next election could be held (for a lot less than they were paying her BTW). I talk to her on the phone about once a year and she's still pissed off about the "shabby" treatment she received (this was like 25 years ago).

[Frank Cannon]

28. She's proven she's as useless as tits on a bull.

The woman's been doing jack shit for weeks and is still collecting a hefty paycheck. Why the people in her district would want to throw $80,000 a year at her is just unbelievable.

[niyad]

29. ooops. "the theory of unintended consequences"

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. Yes but they are necessary for record keeping.

City clerks, County Clerks, and District Clerks have to keep vital records, real estate property records, marriage and divorce records, business assumed name and partnership records, civil & criminal lawsuit records, and probably a number of other things that I can't think of off the top of my head. I worked in the court system in a very high population urban county, the third most populous county in the United States, and there were a whole lot of people needed to keep those functions going.

Several thousand people are in and out of these courts and offices every weekday attending to business.