Gov. Rick Scott's first months running Florida have yielded plenty of gems that would be comedy gold if we didn't actually have to live with them in real life. Drug testing every state employee? To benefit a medical company he co-founded? Didn't we see that one in Naked Gun 4?
A lawsuit headed to the state Supreme Court this week invokes another classic: Monty Python. A blind Opa Locka woman -- who has had difficulty getting food stamps under Scott's new welfare policy -- argues that Scott's rulemaking "seems to have come from a Monty Python skit." Except less funny ha-ha, of course.
Specifically, the suit cites a classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur accidentally stumbles into a politically conscious collective of peasants and struggles to explain why exactly he's their king.
"The lady of the lake," he explains. "(She) held aloft Excalibur from the shimmering bosom of the water, signaling by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!"
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no system for a basis of government," a peasant complains.
Scott, not unlike King Arthur, the suit suggests, has laid claim to "supreme executive power" on the flimsiest of rationales, reports Tampa Bay Online.
Rosalie Whiley, a low-income resident in Opa-Locka, filed the suit in March when she was forced to refile for food stamps because Scott had prevented a state agency from complying with federal rules.
Scott's attorneys didn't quite agree with her cinematic comparisons. "(The suit) caricatures the Governor's position ... arguing that the Governor has derived a 'theory' of separation of powers 'from a Monty Python skit," they write in a response.
Scott then announced his next initiative, a groundbreaking new "ministry" for the state:
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