ATL Idol, Lawyer of the Day

Lawyer of the Day: Jon Bruning

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[Ed. note: This post is by SOPHIST, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Sophist’s avatar (at right).]
Nebraska’s Attorney General Jon Bruning might want to call OnStar before he files his next lawsuit.
In January, Bruning filed suit to stop the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska from constructing a casino on their reservation lands. Unfortunately for Bruning, the Ponca Tribe planned to build their casino in Iowa. In papers filed Friday, the DOJ argued that Bruning lacked standing to block the casino’s construction. The Government could have pointed out that Bruning’s lawsuit is also entirely redundant, given that the Attorney General of Iowa has already filed an appropriate action. How many state Attorneys General does it take to fight off the natives and their tricky card games?
In response to the DOJ’s clever Google maps defense, Bruning refused to bow to any “juris-my-diction” flak. In an email to the Omaha World-Herald, Bruning defended his lawsuit by noting that gamblers might drive through Nebraska to get to the Ponca casino. It will be fun when Bruning claims lordship over Las Vegas, another destination that is hard to get to from Iowa without passing over or through Nebraska.
Posturing lawsuits of this nature are part of a pattern for Killjoy Jon. His other career highlights include leading the charge against salvia, the psychotropic sage that briefly made YouTube fun again. Not surprisingly, his attempt dramatically increased sales of the drug. Bruning did not let the legislature’s refusal to act stop him from enforcing the non-existent statute. On March 10, 2008 a salvia purveyor was arrested for what some would describe as selling a substance we’d very much like to control someday.
To the extent that Bruning’s grandstanding (not my word) distracts him from protecting Nebraskans against thieving crows and other heartland menaces, his reasons are understandable. Like so many attorneys, he is absolutely desperate to get out of the legal profession. Bruning, a Republican, started running for Chuck Hagel’s Senate seat before Hagel even announced his retirement. Having aborted that campaign, Bruning now casts a lascivious eye towards Democrat Bob Nelson’s seat in 2012, or a future gubernatorial run.
Whatever his ambitions, it is unlikely the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska will stand in his way, since the Ponca’s problems, of course, are with Iowa.

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