Oh yeah? And so the litigation begins ...
NewsMax.com
July 1, 2003
Recall Bid Going to Court?
Thanks to an opinion issued by California election officials, the recall campaign against Governor Gray Davis may make a pit stop in the courts before voters get a crack at driving the unpopular governor from the state capitol in Sacramento.
A letter to the election supervisors in all of the state's 58 counties from Democrat Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said that while the officials must keep a running count of signatures on recall petitions, they can stall for a full month before validating the signatures.
As a result of this obvious delaying tactic, some recall supporters are threatening to take the case to court on the grounds that Shelley's action could delay the recall election until March instead of in October or early November. They say an election in March would give Davis the advantage of having a larger turnout of Democrats voting in the upcoming presidential primary.
"A judicial clarification appears to be required," James Sweeney, a lawyer for the Recall Gray Davis Committee, one of three groups trying to remove Davis told the Sacramento Bee. "It's our view that the constitution requires a continuous count and validation and that it does so to prevent politically motivated officials from derailing, slowing down or stalling the certification of a recall petition."
Added U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) who is a Republican financing the recall drive and hoping to replace Davis, on Monday accused the governor and Democratic Party of pressuring Shelley.
"We fully intend to make sure that he complies with the law," Issa told the Bee of Shelley.
"He (Shelley) has no policy justification for his sort of twisted interpretation of the statute other than a political motivation," Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer representing Rescue California, the group of recall backers financed by Issa told the Bee. "Even if he takes this bizarre interpretation, my view is it's still going to qualify for a fall election anyway."
Hiltachk added that he's hopeful local elections officials will verify signatures as they receive them.
One of them, Candy Lopez, assistant registrar for Contra Costa County, told the Bee her county already has begun the verification process while acknowledging that the recall law is confusing.
"I could see where people could read the same thing and come to different conclusions," she said. "Sooner or later they're going to have to agree, or somebody's going to have to take somebody to court and have a judge decide what it means. Isn't democracy great?"
The campaign to remove Davis just months after he had been re-elected to a second term is led by Republicans; Shelley, like Davis, is a Democrat. Recall backers must submit 897,158 valid voter signatures by early September to bring on a recall, and they say they've already collected more than that number. As of last week, however, election officials had reported receiving only about 376,000 signatures.