3-D Spidermans

Amusing bit from this past weekend's T-P politics round up.  The issue at hand here is the ongoing legal dispute between the mayor and the city council over who gets to pass around Wisner trust money to whose patrons. The council's position is that the mayor is "wrongfully handing over city money to private parties." And that is, of course, true. But the only reason the councilmembers are so hot to challenge her on this is because, in their estimation, wrongfully handing over city money to private parties is supposed to be their job. 

Really, both sides are kind of right. Ordinarily they all work together to figure out all the spoils. But lately nobody at City Hall is getting along with anyone else. When that happens the little understandings that normally obtain start to break down and the system can no longer function. For instance...

Below the surface, the case involves a more fundamental question: Can the council sue the mayor, as an independent component of city government?

No, it cannot, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled in June, a decision that is now before the Louisiana Supreme Court. Before that is settled, however, the council is trying a new tactic, one that will test its power in a different way.

The council on Thursday voted to order the City Attorney’s Office to make the city a plaintiff in the lawsuit, even though city lawyers have already made arguments on Cantrell’s behalf. The strategy is to pre-empt any dismissal based on the council’s lack of authority to independently sue the mayor. And the result, if it works, will be a spectacle: a mayoral administration suing a mayor. Might New Orleanians have the privilege of witnessing one city lawyer arguing against another in open court? Seems highly unlikely, but one can dream.

The headline for this column makes reference to the Spiderman-pointing-at-Spiderman meme but doesn't explain the joke in the text of the article. On the one hand, it's refreshing to see the T-P assume even a minimal degree of sophistication in its readers. On the other hand, maybe some clarification is in order. We're pretty sure they mean the two Spidermen here are the hypothetical dueling city lawyers. But they could also be every councilmember and the mayor pointing at each other in every direction as well. Maybe it's all of that.