duty-bound fulfill
roles with due care, some modicum
of independence
The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.
Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.
But, while public board service may be an honor, board members are not mere figureheads.
They are still duty-bound to fulfill their roles with due care and some modicum of independence.
That tenet holds especially true for board members tasked by Congress with managing property held in trust for the enjoyment of the American people.
From the ruling of United States District Judge Christopher R. Cooper in the case Beatty vs. Trump, et al.
Congress it seems, gets a muligan.
According to Wikipedia, A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder. Its best-known use is in golf, whereby it refers to a player being allowed, only informally, to replay a stroke, although that is against the formal rules of golf. The term has also been applied to other sports, games, and fields generally. The origin of the term is unclear.
As a point of trivia, Wikipedia also says, The earliest known use of the term is in a 1931 issue of the Detroit Free Press, somewhat predating the earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1936. The most common explanation of the term’s origin is that it was named after a golfer with the surname Mulligan, the main candidates being either David Mulligan or John A. “Buddy” Mulligan; however, no connection with these figures is recorded until several decades after the term entered common use.
Which I include as a shout out to the Detroit Free Press, but I digress.
As I was saying, Congress has been given a muligan, a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder over adding a name to the name of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center of the Performing Arts.
It is a mistake to think that that current man in office would ever wait for permission to do something.
Anyone who has managed to read all of Robert Caro’s bio of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, will recognize the game plan.
Mr. Caro writes about the efforts of people in New York to preserve the revolutionary era Fort Clinton at the tip of Manhatten Island.
Robert Moses wanted the old Fort demolished and the land redeveloped and he wasn’t waiting for persmission.
Caro writes, “In 1946, Congress was ready to pass the bill designating Fort Clinton a national monument. But, recalls Binger, “this would take six or eight months.” Moses moved faster. At four o’clock one Friday afternoon, he got a new demolition authorization from the Board of Estimate. (O’Dwyer betrayed the reformers; McAneny confided, “He’s not a very solid sort of person.”) Leaving City Hall, the reformers huddled desperately. Binger had been toying with the idea of bringing a new suit—on the grounds that the fort was a monument and hence permission was required from the Municipal Art Commission for its destruction.
Binger hired Frederick Van Pelt Bryan, who “called Windels and said, ‘I’m going to court Monday on this.’ And that’s when Paul Windels saved the fort. He said, ‘Are you crazy? There won’t be anything left of this fort Monday morning. He’ll demolish it over the weekend.’ This was all on a Friday, remember. ‘You bring this to court in half an hour.’ ” Bryan did, and persuaded a Supreme Court Justice to sign an injunction, which was handed to Moses that evening.
How right Windels had been was proven when the reformers rushed to Battery Park the next morning to see if any damage had been done. In the brief hours before the injunction had been served on Moses, Binger recalls, he “had already burned those great doors.”
But again, I digress (though I have to add there is a lot to learn about the ways and means of that man currently in office from this book).
I feel on this one small thing Congress has got a second chance to perform an action, after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder.
As the Judge said, they are still duty-bound to fulfill their roles with due care and some modicum of independence.
Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.
Any bets on how this plays out?
