CA: Who Knew What, And When? (Prop 77 has its day at 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals)

KQED blog - Capitol Notes ^ | 8/5/05 | John Myers

[NormsRevenge]

A three judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals may have a decision next Tuesday as to whether the initiative to change political redistricting is on the November ballot.

But while today's two hour hearing focused on legal and constitutional issues, it also shed some light on what might become a political powderkeg: who knew there were problems with the initiative's language, and when?

In particular, Dan Kolkey, the attorney representing the authors of Proposition 77, was asked when he knew of the language differences between what was circulated for signatures, and what was submitted to the Attorney General.

Kolkey said he was first told of the problems in phone calls from the Schwarzenegger allied group Citizens To Save California, and the governor's state-paid legal affairs secretary, Peter Siggins.

As to when all of this happened: we only know it was after May 5, when petitions began to be submitted to various counties. Today in court, Kolkey admitted he was informed "sometime in May", but did not elaborate.

Why is all of this important: because Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified Prop 77 for the ballot on June 10. And his staffers weren't informed of the language snafus until June 12. And by then, of course, the measure was technically on the ballot.

All of these questions about who knew what, and when, are going to be the focus of a special hearing called by Democrats in the Legislature for the week of August 15th. The story is far from over.

[seastay]

everyone knows what it means except the lawyers

[calcowgirl]

Interesting comments on this thread:

http://majordomo.lls.edu/cgi-bin/lwgate/ELECTION-LAW_GL/archives/election-law_gl.archive.0507/date/article-77.html

The case is not entirely free of factual issues, as Rick may have suggested. Judge Ohanesian said there is insufficient evidence that the proponents had actual notice (presumably she means knowledge) of the discrpancies as of May 5 but that with ordinary care they should have known. Actually, I think there is a pretty good case that they did know. Their story is that the circulated version was an earlier version, substituted accidentally for the corrected version that was submitted to the AG. I have been told (but not confirmed) that the deadline in the AG version falls on Thanksgiving and that the different deadline in the circulated version therefore does not fall on Thanksgiving. It is not very likely that someone would change a deadline to make it fall on Thanksgiving, which makes it very likely that the circulated version was actually their final, corrected version.

[John Lenin]

I don't think this was an accident. Do us a favor Rinold, go back to acting.