Ex-ABA Prez Cites Monty Python in Lampooning Governor’s Claim to Supreme Executive Power
The Holy Grail dialogue referred to in the court filing.
Former ABA President Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte is citing a classic comedy sketch in a lawsuit challenging Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s idea of “supreme executive power.”
D’Alemberte cited a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in recent court filings that are part of a suit challenging Scott’s decision to suspend state rule-making, the Tampa Tribune reports. (Scott has since revised his order and is now requiring agencies to submit proposed rules to his office.)
D’Alemberte is working with legal aid lawyers representing Rosalie Whiley, a low-income blind woman who claims Florida is unable to revise its food stamp application through rule-making to comply with federal law because of the governor’s order, the story says.
According to the court document, written by D’Alemberte, “The governor’s theory seems to have come from a Monty Python skit. See the discourse between ‘Arthur, King of Britons’ and ‘Dennis the Constitutional Peasant,’ from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
The Tampa Tribune explains that the scene involves King Arthur’s claim that he was given the power to rule by a mystical Lady of the Lake.
D’Alemberte told the Tampa Tribune that the Monty Python sketch is one of the funniest pieces he’s ever seen, and there’s nothing wrong with lawyers having a sense of humor. “I’m not accusing the governor of going quite as far as the Arthur character in Monty Python went,” said D’Alemberte, who is also a former president of Florida State University. “But he does assert in [a subsequent order] this idea of supreme executive power as though it’s magic.”
