Jackass of the day: Frank Melton, Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. He was faced with a city council that refused to pass a law banning sagging pants. That’s a now familiar way for the aluminum siding salesmen, Ford dealers, and retirees that make up our nations’ local governments to amuse themselves. But Frank Melton knows that all that is necessary for visible boxers to triumph is for men who wear tighty-whities to do nothing. So he’s going to ban saggy pants by executive order. In announcing this to the press, he had this deathless line:

The council members who voted against the saggy-pants ban said it likely was unconstitutional.

But Mayor Frank Melton, who joined the council meeting via telephone from Texas, said he will issue an executive order instituting the dress code.

“I certainly respect the Constitution,” Melton said, “but we have some issues that are much bigger than the Constitution.”

Now, I’m even a bit skeptical that saggy-pant legislation is unconstitutional. I haven’t thought it through. But the notion that saggy pants are a problem much bigger than the constitution is jaw-droppingly cretinous. The notion that ANY local issue is “much bigger than the Constitution” is ridiculous. Yet it’s an all-too-common attitude among government officials sworn to uphold that constitution, as I mentioned in the context of another local jackass earlier today.

People like Frank Melton don’t get that their casual contempt for the Constitution — and with it, for the rule of law — is uglier than an army of plumber’s cracks, and far more of a threat to public morals.

Finally, let me add that it appears that being a lawyer for the government is as glamorous as ever:

The state attorney general’s office has not issued an opinion on whether the mayor has the authority to outlaw saggy pants through executive order.

Hat tip: Radley Balko.

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