It’s done – the likes of Mary Anderson and Jody Vaughan are removed from their perch of power at Deschutes County. The county commissioners were smart enough to not bind the county into a union contract with these fascists. (The full list of those eligible for the soup kitchen includes Darryl Nakahira, Phil Duong, Mary Anderson, Jody Vaughan and Brentley Foster)
As reported in the Bulletin, Andrew Altschul, attorney for Foster and Vaughan, says “I think (Flaherty) targeted people who he knew supported the union,” and “I think it’s union-busting.” Andrew Altschul obviously has a hard time thinking. Think about this, Andrew: You are sitting in court, explaining to a judge that your client is has a claim against Deschutes County for unfair termination with an eye towards union-busting. Clearly the county didn’t want a union, and to discourage the union effort, they fired your clients. Following your presentation, the opposing attorney presents his case. He (or she?) says that the county didn’t fire these employees due to their union formation. In fact, the laywer that opposes you argues that Patrick Flaherty had announced his plans well ahead of the formation of the union. Your opposition continues to argue that the union was explicitly formed to get a “just cause” termination clause in the union contract with the county, and that the key organizers of the union were people who knew that their fascist “prosecutorial philosophy” was not going to keep them in a job past the new year.
That paints an entirely different picture. With Altschul’s current claims, the underlying legal question to prove union-busting intent becomes a question of timing. Were the union organizers targeted for firing before, or after the formation of the union? Did they know about Flaherty’s plans before the union, prompting their formation of it, or was their blissful union suddenly broken up by Flaherty’s vengeful, union-busting antics? It’s going to be an uphill battle to argue that Deschutes County was aiming for the DCDDAA union itself. Why did Jody Vaughan and Mary Anderson jump into this union so quickly and vocally? I’ll tell you why. The people who headed up the union are the same ones who knew they were losing their jobs the minute the words “prosecutorial philosophy” were spoken. The philosophy of the likes of Mary Anderson and Jody Vaughan is to “pursue with zeal any case that lands in my lap, to further my career no matter what merit it has, at the expense of the defendants and the county taxpayers.” It is well known to anyone with a subscription to the Bend Bulletin that the union was formed to prevent the firing which happened today. It will be fun to see how Andrew Altschul argues otherwise. I’m taking bets on how long BAAS LLP can uselessly drain the coffers of these former Deschutes DDAs. One year? Two years? Three years? No matter how many years of legal expertise Altschul has, nothing he’s going to come up with will change the recorded, reported and well understood facts in this case.
There is talk of lawsuits being brought against former prosecutors in Deschutes County and prosecutors in Klamath County. The target? Testing the limits of qualified immunity for prosecutors. These former Deschutes DDAs have a lot more to worry about than using Altschul to steal more cash from the county they’ve already pillaged. They may end up in the US Supreme Court, as center pieces for clarifying the current legal interpretation of qualified immunity developed in the Clinton era. When you abuse the public, knowingly and willingly, how much protection should the government provide?