Nevadans Soon To Enjoy Glorious, Somalia-Style Leaderless Anarchy
It's a a damn shame that Wonkette West Coast Bureau Chief Ken Layne went on vacation just when Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, one of Ken's least favorite people ever, was revealed to not really be the governor at all, but just some white guy in a bad suit wandering around the governor's mansion giving orders. All the details, after the jump.
Wonkette readers know all about Gibbons's bizarre decision to take his oath of office in his living room on New Years Eve , which he justified with some "homeland security" baloney but which was really all about some sleazy machinations involving the state gambling board . But now it turns out that in jumping the gun, Gibbons might have invalidated his own gubernatorialness!
See, according to the Nevada Constitution, you can't be the governor if you're a federal office-holder -- like, say, a Congressman. And according to the U.S. Constitution, Gibbons was a Congressman until January 3,afterhe took the oath, so it didn't count. The Nevada Constitution also says that you're not governor until you take oath. So presumably this means that Gibbons will almost certainly be arrested at any moment for impersonating a chief executive, and the Nevada governorship will devolve to the next person in the line of succession, who is presumably the head of one of the state's major mob families.
This theory was first proposed by an anonymous commentor on the Las Vegas Gleaner blog , and taken up with glee by Reno and Its Discontents and Vote Gibbons Out . Presumably actual, non-blogger legal scholars will pick it up soon and Gibbons will be off to the hoosegow lickety-split.
Now that we think about it, perhaps Ken's vacation timing was no accident. Expect to see him enthroned as Nevada's God-King, sitting atop the Luxor and drinking from flagons made from the skulls of his enemies, by Friday.
Earlier: Waitress-Slapping Drunken Governor's Secret Midnight Oath and Psychotic Nevada Guv's Midnight Oath Scam Revealed!
Constitutional Crisis: Nevada Ain't Got No Gube [Vote Gibbons Out]
Is Gibbons Actually The Governor? [Reno And Its Discontents]
Daily Glean [Las Vegas Gleaner]