UpFront News Briefs
September 26, 2003
OVERHEARD“[The suit] definitely plants the seeds for other people and groups in other states to initiate [litigation] where there are punch-card ballot machines in some jurisdictions and not in others.”
—Tova Andrea Wang, former national election reform staffer, on the implications of the suit that temporarily halts California’s recall election. Punch-card ballots are used in 25 states, including Missouri, site of the first presidential primary.
Federal Court
California Recall Election Reinstated
A federal appeals court Tuesday unanimously put California’s recall election back on the calendar for Oct. 7.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which had sought a postponement, said it would not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, removing the final legal roadblock to the recall and setting up a 14-day sprint among the candidates in the historic election to remove Gov. Gray Davis.
The 11-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco swiftly overturned a decision issued last week by three of the most liberal judges on the court.
The three judges had postponed the election until perhaps March to give six counties more time to switch over to electronic voting systems from the error-prone punch-card ballots that caused the recount mess in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The panel repeatedly cited the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision that effectively decided the 2000 election.
The more conservative 11-judge panel acknowledged that allowing the election to go forward now could cause some votes to go uncounted. But the panel said that the candidates, the voters and the state have already spent a huge amount of time and money on the assumption the election would be held Oct. 7.
If the election is postponed, the court said, “it is certain that the state of California and its citizens will suffer material hardship by virtue of the enormous resources already invested in reliance on the elections proceeding on the announced date.
“In short, the status quo that existed at the time the election was set cannot be restored because this election has already begun,” the court said in a ruling issued less than 20 hours after the panel heard arguments.
The judges acknowledged the possibility of lawsuits after the votes are in and counted, saying the ACLU is “legitimately concerned that use of the punch-card system will deny the right to vote to some voters who must use that system.”
But the court contended that the ACLU argument was “merely a speculative possibility.”
Legal scholars had predicted Tuesday’s outcome, if not the unanimous vote. A day after the three-judge panel delayed the vote, the court announced it would reconsider the case with 11 judges — a sign the court had misgivings.
The 11 judges — none of whom were on the original three-judge panel — based their decision on the California Constitution, not any precedent set by Bush v. Gore.
Among other things, the court cited the time and money that have been spent to prepare for the election. The court said that if the election is postponed, the hundreds of thousands of absentee voters who have already cast their ballots “will effectively be told that the vote does not count and that they must vote again.”
Dorothy M. Ehrlich, the ACLU’s executive director for Northern California, said the ACLU will not pursue its case to the Supreme Court.
At the same time, ACLU legal director Mark Rosenbaum said an election in which a large percentage of voters will use punch-card ballots “breaks the heart of democracy.”
“Elections ought to be decided by voters, not flea-market voting machines,” he said.
— David Kravets,
The Associated Press
CALIFORNIA RECALL
Locke Stumps to Keep Davis
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, the country’s first Chinese American governor and head of the nation’s Democratic governors, campaigned for embattled colleague Gray Davis in California on Monday.
Locke, the son of Chinese immigrants and a longtime ally of his fellow West Coast governor, campaigned with Davis in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“The governor is specifically targeting the Asian [Pacific] American community,” Locke spokesman Roger Nyhus said Friday. “He strongly believes that the recall is wrong for California, wrong for Washington, wrong for the nation.
“All of the uncertainty in such a large state is bad for the American economy. … Gov. Locke has made it clear that there are 47 other states with major budget problems in this country and they were not caused by the actions of the governors. They were caused by Sept. 11 and the national recession and so many other factors.
“Most governors are really limited in terms of what they can do because so much of their budgets are taken up with paying for educating, medicating and incarcerating their citizens.”
Locke is part of a parade of Democratic luminaries going to bat for Davis. Former Vice President Al Gore campaigned with Davis on Friday. Former President Bill Clinton stumped for Davis the previous weekend. Howard Dean and other presidential candidates are campaigning with Davis.
Locke also has an official event on the schedule, appearing with Davis in Los Angeles to announce a pact by California, Oregon and Washington to work together on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating global warming.
— A.P.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Law Alleged Illegal Under Prop. 209
A new California law is illegal under voter-approved Proposition 209, alleged the proposition’s author Ward Connerly, who has filed a lawsuit.
The law allows “special measures” to ensure that minorities enjoy equal treatment, using language from a 1960s United Nations treaty to define racial discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin” designed to prevent equal rights.
Connerly said, “The legislature has gone beyond the bounds, just totally running a truck through what the people decided.”
The bill’s author, Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), contended the measure would merely let government agencies conduct outreach programs to minority- or women-owned businesses in bidding for government contracts.
But Sharon Mathew, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney who filed the suit for Connerly, said the measure “guts Proposition 209 entirely.”
She and Connerly said there are no restrictions in the legislation’s language. Their suit, filed in Sacramento County court, names Gov. Gray Davis for signing the measure and Attorney General Bill Lockyer for enforcing it, and seeks a court order halting its implementation.
— A.P.
HATE CRIMES
State’s Top Cops Blast Prop. 54
Top California law enforcement officials came out against Proposition 54 on Sept. 18, saying the initiative to prevent the state from collecting racial data would hinder efforts to fight crime.
“At a time when our state is increasingly enriched by cultural diversity, Proposition 54 seeks to promote inequality, injustice and again breed ignorance,” California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said in a prepared statement. “I wholeheartedly oppose this ill-conceived measure and urge all Californians to join me in working toward its defeat.”
Lockyer and other officials announced their opposition during a press conference in Los Angeles that included City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Police Chief William Bratton.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative would hamper their ability to prevent racial profiling and protect against hate crimes.
The announcement came as Gov. Gray Davis campaigned with the Rev. Jesse Jackson against the initiative, which would bar the state from classifying people by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in public education, contracting and employment.
“Proposition 54 is a bad idea,” Davis said during a campaign stop at Los Angeles Southwest Community College. “We can’t tell if African Americans, Latinos, Asian [Pacific] Americans and Anglos are learning if we can’t get good information.”
Davis called Proposition 54 an insult to voters’ intelligence because he said it prohibits the collection of valuable information.
“It’s like banning books in the Middle Ages,” Davis told reporters after his speech.
— A.P.
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