Posted on 08/10/2005 7:33:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Supporters of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's redistricting initiative asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn two lower court rulings and put the measure on the November special election ballot.
Attorneys for political activist Ted Costa and other official sponsors of the initiative said a Sacramento Superior Court judge and an appeals court majority erred in ruling that the initiative failed to make the ballot because supporters used two versions in the qualifying process.
One version went on petitions signed by voters. The other went to the attorney general to prepare a title and summary of the initiative that would go on the petitions and in a voter information pamphlet.
The measure, known as Proposition 77, would take the power to draw legislative and congressional districts away from the Legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges.
It is one of three initiatives supported by the Republican governor. The other two would impose new controls on state spending and require new teachers to spend five years on probation instead of two.
Supporters said the differences between the two versions of Proposition 77 were minor and that the lower courts should have decided the initiative qualified under a substantial compliance test.
"Many decisions that successfully apply the substantial compliance doctrine involve inadvertent errors caused by carelessness," the supporters' attorneys said in a petition asking for a quick decision by the high court.
They also said that Tuesday's ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeal conflicted with a decision by another appeals court in a similar case involving a city ordinance. In addition, they cited the Supreme Court's reluctance to bar ballot measures without a "clear showing of invalidity."
The petition notes that the Supreme Court restored Proposition 80, an electricity regulation initiative, to the Nov. 8 ballot after it was removed by the 3rd District Court of Appeal. In that case, the high court said Proposition 80's constitutionality could be decided later, if voters approve the initiative.
But Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, and Lance Olson, an attorney representing Proposition 77's opponents, said the Proposition 77 and Proposition 80 cases involve different issues.
"The Proposition 80 case was about a substantial constitutional issue, whereas this case is about a procedural issue," Olson said. "The Supreme Court has been very clear that procedural issues are subject to pre-election review.
"The rules say you have to do this and this to get on the ballot, and they didn't do this and this. They didn't circulate the correct version of the initiative."
Dresslar said the attorney general's office would file quick responses asking the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court decisions.
"This is a very important case for the future and integrity of the initiative process," Dresslar said.
Proposition 77 could be in jeopardy if the Supreme Court doesn't rule by Monday, when the state begins printing the 12 million pamphlets giving voters pro and con arguments on the Nov. 8 ballot measures.
But a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's Office, Nghia Nguyen Demovic, indicated there was some flexibility in the Monday deadline.
"This is all uncharted territory," she said. "It depends on what the court tells us to do, and we will administer whatever they tell us to do."
The case is Costa v. Superior Court, S136294.
Had Costa not been so deceitful and arrogant, one version of the initiative would have already been placed back on the ballot.
This issue has evolved and is no longer about minor changes on a legal document. It is now about delivering a message to a renegade member of the outer circle.
It's a mess.
Ted Costa and The Gub aka 'Advocates' worked the initiative wording up, mostly it was Ted at first, the Gub's folks wanted some changes including judge panel, etc. This all would have been sent to the AG at the time for initial review and certification of receipt of the initiative.
Somewhere along the ways, the wording got massaged and wasn't passed on to the AG or someone blew it raising a flag to make sure all was kosher.
The AG would have done the final front end part of the job, writing a title and summary , etc. and OKing for use.
There is plenty of blame to go around, imo. It's not like these things don't happen frequently enough to have the process down pa and have safeguards in place to catch something like this.. considering so much is at stake.
The fact that so much is at stake from the c"rats point of view, obviously the AG and his folks didn't question it anymore than they had to, hoping something would blow up, which it did.
Maybe it was the Gub's folks continuing to tinker, which is too bad as Ted had an initiative in the can for quite awhile, so.. while Ted will get the brunt of the blame, in the end we all get screwed but the c"rats win, Par for the course the last few years.
down pat
..that's if all the ducks wanted this effort to succeed.
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BINGO :)
You can read the judges ruling at this link:
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/prop77appeal.pdf
Under the "facts" section, it says that they sent a Dec 6 version to the AG to develop the Title and Summary. Then, to get a head start on petitions, they sent it to the printers before the Title and Summary was completed. But, at that point, they accidentally sent a Dec 3 version to the printers, an older version than what they had sent Lockyer. Lockyers folks developed the Title and Summary from the Dec 6 version, then the printers added that to the Dec 3 version on the final petitions.
A mess, indeed.
Thanks. Blame it on the printers. :)
>>Hopefully the fool who put him up to this, Congressman Bill Thomas, has learned his lesson...
Can you share any more details?
A lot of money and energy, for sure. At one point, reports said they were paying $10 dollars a signature. Some donors are probably ticked, as they should be.
If you don't feel like reading that ruling, check out some of the extracted quotes in yesterdays thread (post 22 and 23.) It seems like their approach in court could have been more effective, as well:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1460076/posts?page=22#22
You're right $10 is high, and as I think of it more, it might not have been this petition that they paid that much (but one of them they did, reportedly). I think the more common price is $2-$3 per signature.
Good night.
These are the talking points from Ted Costa, proponent, so I can't vouch for them.
WHY is this happening? I think the GOP is attempting to undermine the governor. This isn't the first time one of his reforms have been hamstrung. One regarding unions was assaulted as not protecting fire fighter widows' pensions and the political hell because so difficult that one was revoked from circulation. It had been prepared by a GOP legislator. Now we have this screw up by Ted Costa. TWO of FOUR?? What are the chances of this happening when you have *professionals* involved in the process?
I smell a R-A-T and it's spelled "litmus test" G-O-P. They've hated Arnold from day one and I wouldn't be surprised to see them run someone against him in the gubernatorial primary next year. That could split the vote between fiscal conservatives and the "litmus test" folks and put a Democrat back in office. Those "litmus test" folks have controlled the party and put up one brain dead candidate after the next: Matt Fong, Bill Simon, Bill Jones... it's an embarrassment how we can't get it together in CA even against the truly insane Barbara Boxer or a governor we had to turn around and recall because the "chosen one" (Simon) in that election was such a inept nimrod!
Do you think this is all designed to undermine the Governor? Seems suspicious that one petition already had to be withdrawn due to a massive hole that led the activists to scream about firefighter widows and survivor benefits. That was drawn up by a legislator. Are the state GOP *that* against the governor that they'd attempt to knock him out in the primary and get one of their "gold boys" into office in '06?
This mess is inexcusable.
Well, I'm scratching my head on that one. The testimony from Costa's folks admits that Lockyer had the more recent version. So, now, he's saying that he would want to put the old version on the ballot? I posted the language changes at this link (I think there were a couple more than these, but, as you can see, they're not just a couple word changes).
These changes came to light, supposedly, when the proponents brought it to the attention of the AG's office. It seems the AG's office does not routinely validate changes haven't been made.
Yeah. If you read the ruling (PDF FILE), it covers this. But it seems that one thing that ticked off the judges was the allegedly not-so-timely disclosure. They knew for a while, but didn't tell Lockyer until the middle of June, after it was qualified for the Ballot. I do know that the text of the initiative originally posted on Costa's website disappeared sometime before May 21, as I was looking for it on that day and the prior link took me to a table on the # of petitions qualified. (I know that because I emailed a friend asking if they had a copy on that day).
WHY is this happening?
Really good question. I'll leave it to those who are politically connected to speculate. I will note that the GOP folks who have been very supportive of Arnold are the same ones that gave us Bill Jones, et al, so I think it is something different than you have outlined.
I believe that one was written by the Recovery Team who have been behind Arnold all the way:
...Jon Coupal, an antitax activist and author of the pension reform ballot initiative that Schwarzenegger is backing... (source: SF Chronicle)Are the state GOP *that* against the governor that they'd attempt to knock him out in the primary and get one of their "gold boys" into office in '06?
It seems to me the state GOP is fully behind Arnold. Remember, they even changed the party rules to endorse him for 2006, way in advance of any primary.
This mess is inexcusable.
Agreed.
Bill Thomas has been agitating on the side of redistricting for several decades. He is of the belief that if the districts were more competitive we'd elect more RINOs like him to Congress. (I don't believe that, so I'm fine supporting redistricting efforts, when they are written properly).
Costa is Thomas' lapdog and has been involved in several of these redistricting efforts. This isn't the first time a court has thrown one of his initiatives off the ballot after qualification.
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