Posted on 07/06/2006 9:28:20 AM PDT by AntiGuv
AUSTIN — A federal judge ruled today that Republicans cannot replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the ballot for the 22nd Congressional District race.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, a Republican appointee, ruled that DeLay must appear on the Nov. 7 ballot as the GOP nominee for the congressional seat that DeLay abandoned last month. Sparks ruling was confirmed by Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Amber Moon.
Details of Sparks ruling were not immediately available.
Sparks ruling halts the process of replacing DeLay on the ballot, but the GOP is expected to appeal the decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
If the Republicans lose on appeal, DeLay will have to decide whether to campaign for an office from which he already has resigned.
When he announced his resignation, DeLay said he believed he could win re-election but thought he would be a drag on other Republican candidates for office because Democrats would use him as a lightening rod to raise money and attack the GOP in general. So he resigned and dropped his re-election bid.
Precinct chairs in the four counties of the 22nd District already have started the process of selecting a new nominee.
Republicans who have been vying for the seat are Sugar Land lawyer Tom Campbell; state Reps. Charlie Howard or Sugar Land and Robert Talton of Pasadena; state Sen. Mike Jackson of Houston; Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs; Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers; Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace; retired Air Force Maj. Don Richardson; and former state GOP executive committee member Tim Turner.
The Democratic nominee is former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson of Houston. The Libertarian Party is represented by Bob Smither of Friendswood.
DeLay already had won the Republican nomination for re-election to his district when he resigned from the U.S. House on June 9. Texas Republican Chair Tina Benkiser declared DeLay ineligible because he had become a resident of Virginia, and she started the process of replacing DeLay on the ballot.
The Texas Democratic Party sued, claiming Benkiser had no authority to declare DeLay ineligible.
The Democrats said DeLay's eligibility is determined by the U.S. Constitution as to which state DeLay is an inhabitant of on election day, Nov. 7. They said DeLay also could not withdraw from the race because state law does not allow a party's nominee to withdraw when another political party also has a nominee.
Republicans argued that Benkiser could declare DeLay ineligible because the Constitution allows the states to control the manner and means of the election. They said that by changing his official residence to Virginia, DeLay had made himself ineligible for the Texas office, even though he still maintained a home in Sugar Land.
DeLay last year had to give up his position as House majority leader after being indicted in Austin on campaign-finance related charges. DeLay said that investigation was politically motivated by Democratic District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
DeLay became a focus of national news reports in the wake of the Jack Abramoff influence peddling scandal. DeLay has maintained his innocence, but two of his former aides have pleaded guilty to federal charges.
Look, y'all might be a little slower down there, but people up north usually get the message on the first take.
Both Perry and Gramm had to run for office and win as Republicans. And I would suggest that Perry is not the best example for you to cite.
I pledge $500, if DeLay chooses to run.
Me: Does anybody know the 5th circuit's bias?
deport: I hope they are biased to the 'rule of law'.
Yeah but you're probably an optimist - I'm hoping for not "not biased against Republicans." :)
The point being that almost everyone with any ambition in Texas ran as a Democrat until the 1970s, and most of them through the 1980s.
Let's say that DeLay campaigns and gets elected, then chooses to not take his seat. Who nominates his replacement? The Governor (a Republican)? That wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Run on the popular DeLay name and reputation in a Republican friendly area, then replace DeLay with a choice which DeLay and the Guv like.
Screw off Dims!
I'm not sure it really matters. Eligilibiliy or ineligibility to vote does not mean he is or is not eligible to run for office.
However, Texas law only appears to require that he be a resident on the day he votes. His current residency in Virginia and his voting in the primary there does not appear to disqualify him from returning his residency to Texas and voting there in November.
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/EL/content/htm/el.002.00.000011.00.htm#11.001.00
Here's a link to an opinion from the Texas Secretary of State's site that covers the issue of residency. It's specifically talking about college students, but if goes into what is required to establish residency for voting. I am not aware of a separate definition of residency relating to candidacy.
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/elo/gsc1.pdf
There appears to be two requirements. A physical residence in the area in which the person wishes to be a resident, and the intention to make that place the person's home rather than a temporary residence.
The opinion quotes a specific case as follows:
As stated in the seminal case of Mills v. Bartlett, 377 S.W.2d 636, 637 (Tex.1964), “[n]either bodily presence alone nor intention alone will suffice to create the residence, but when the two coincide at that moment the residence is fixed and determined. There is no specific length of time for the bodily presence to continue.”
Delay is claiming that he is an ineligible candidate under the US Constitution rather than under Texas law.
Basically, if Delay chooses to make his home in Texas his home at 11:59 pm the night before the election with the intent to live there, he is eligible to vote in the election.
Since he is not required to be a resident before the actual day of the election, and there is no time period requirement to establish residency, it cannot be determined if his residency would disqualify him until the day of the election.
Otherwise someone could try and sue to have a candidate ruled ineligible even though they aren't required to be a resident prior to election day by the Constitution.
I don't know that the residency requirement are for in state tuition in Texas. In Ohio I had to be a state resident for an entire year before I qualified for in state tuition.
Now Delay has no choice but to run. :-)
The irony that he would be forced to run in a race in which he could not vote for himself would not be lost on me.
I will go out on a limb, and predict that the appeal will fail. The trial court ruling was too fact specific, and abuse of discretion appeals are usually DOA. The facts are not so clear that the create a pattern that the ruling of the trial court must be made as a matter of law. If my prediction is right, then Delay must either run, or the GOP "nominee" run as a write in. I assume they allow write-ins in Texas. If so, the Pubbies could go through their procedure (I don't see how a judge could stop freedom of assembly), and then the "nominee" gathers signature petitions to run as a write-in. I think under this procedure the district would still be at least lean GOP.
You seem to really enjoy attacking posters in a personal way. Sad.
Whether conservative or not, the case is poorly postured for a successful appeal. But I don't claim to be an expert on the specific facts, and did not read the trial court decision.
"I can't speak to the intricacies of the law, but I can speak to common sense. I think this kind of law was put into place in order to force the parties to abide by the results of primaries."
Correct. The real danger the law was intended to prevent is having political parties force people off the ballot and undermine primary election decisions.
"It seems to make little sense to force a candidate to run against his will. Certainly it is to a party's disadvantage to change candidates so, other than the New Jersey rule that is in place specifically for the benefit of the state administering elections, there is no reason to have this rule, other than to allow free reign to unscrupulous political operatives."
I agree with you. I'd also agree with the Judge's ruling if it was a case of GOP just trying to change a candidate on a whim. Although the Dems are putting it that way, the way I see it, it is not. Loophole or not, they are legitimately claiming a change of residence (he voted in Virginia) that enables them to declare the candidate ineligible. IMHO, the Judge ruled incorrectly.
The Texas lege is on notice to consider changes to rectify the law (or not).
The Constitution grants each state the broad rights to determine how it's representatives in the House and Senate are elected.
The election laws in New Jersey have zero bearing on Texas elections.
In 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that citizens of Florida were not being treated equally because a partial recount did not treat all the those in Florida equally under Florida law. There's no requirement that Florida's or Texas's elections laws be identical to other States.
New Jersey ignored their own election laws in the name of "giving voters a competitive" election.
I agree. However, NJ's law wasn't nearly as specific as the Texas law. When a court rules on an issue, overturning that ruling is supposed to require a heavy burden of proof that the original ruling isn't a possible interpretation of the law. The way the NJ law is written didn't give the US Supreme Court an overly solid foundation for saying that the NJ Supreme Court wasn't possibly a correct interpretation.
The Texas code is very explicit and states the only conditions in which a candidate's name can be replaced on the ballot.
In other words, it is not equal protection among the states for New Jersey to be allowed to ignore their own election laws for Senator while Texas is not allowed to do the same.
A bad ruling by the NJ Supreme Court on NJ election law is not a justification for a bad ruling on Texas election law. As strange as it may sound, the two aren't really related, other than they have to provide the same basic constitutional protections for voters and candidates. However, for the most part it's up to the individual states to determine how their representatives are elected.
The last thing I want to see happen is the States lose more control over their elections and have the federal government gain even more control over the States regarding how the States choose their own representatives.
Delay should be fighting for State's rights, not working to undermine them.
There was too much evidence that DeLay had not really changed his residence, and that it was a sham. His wife still lived in Texas in the home he owns, and DeLay testified he did not know where he would be living on election day.
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