Lawsuit: Gov. Scott Running Florida a la Monty Python

A blind Florida woman is suing Gov. Rick Scott over his order suspending the state’s rulemaking process—and her attorneys had some fun with the filing. Rosalie Whiley thinks the governor overstepped his constitutional bounds, while the governor says he has the “supreme executive power” to do so. In the suit, Whiley’s attorney—former American Bar Association president Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte—poked fun at him, writing, “The governor’s theory seems to have come from a Monty Python skit.”

“I’m not accusing the governor as going quite as far as the Arthur character,” D'Alemberte tells the Tampa Tribune. “But he does assert this idea of supreme executive power as though it’s magic.” But Scott’s attorneys knocked the reference in their own filing, saying D’Alemberte “caricatures the governor’s position.” Whiley, incidentally, is suing because Scott’s move prevented Florida from changing its food stamp rules to comply to a federal law making it easier for the blind to apply. (More Monty Python stories.)