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City Clerk Gigi Hanna on Wednesday invalidated any signatures asking for a recall election that were gathered before the joint publication of the notice of intention to circulate a recall petition, statement of reasons for the recall and the targeted official’s response.
In letters sent Wednesday, Hanna matched an interpretation of the city’s charter that City Manager Allen Parker gave days before Hanna announced she would take control of the recall process from Parker.
Recall petitions may only be circulated seven days after those items are published in a newspaper of general circulation, if the recall target requests that, Hanna said.
A University of Wisconsin-Platteville engineering student anticipating a new seat on the UW System’s Board of Regents was renounced at the eleventh hour by Gov. Scott Walker, who withdrew the young man’s appointment after finding out he had signed a petition as an 18-year-old freshman calling for the governor’s recall.
Joshua Inglett, who finished his sophomore year last month, said an aide to Walker asked him Wednesday evening whether he had signed the recall petition. He told him he had, and within hours another Walker aide left him a voice mail that made it clear to Inglett he wouldn’t get the position.
A second state lawmaker is staring down the barrel of a recall election after proponents turned in about 2,300 more signatures than needed to oust Democratic Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo over her support for gun control.
Whether the trigger is pulled on the recall election depends on if the secretary of state’s office validates the 13,570 signatures submitted by proponents on Monday. They need 11,285 valid signatures, which represents 25 percent of the votes cast for Giron’s seat in 2010. The secretary’s office has 15 days to validate. There is then a 15-day appeal period and stakeholders can also petition the courts.
The parking lease opponents who sued the city of Cincinnati to stop it from leasing parking meters, lots and garages plan to appeal the decision and ask the appellate court for a stay to stop the city from signing the lease.parking meter
Curt Hartman, a lawyer for the group, says he plans to email the 1st District Court of Appeals tonight or early tomorrow morning.
Senate President John Morse remains adamant he will charge forward into what could be the first recall election of a state lawmaker in Colorado history, though organizers in support of the Colorado Springs lawmaker are weighing all their options ”” including the possibility of Morse stepping down ”” before any election date is set.
“Decisions are happening nonstop in a recall,” said Kjersten Forseth, a consultant to A Whole Lot of People for John Morse, who notes that resignation is an option, though it’s not a focus at this point. “As a team, we’re always re-evaluating where we are on a daily basis. It’s not something you can map out like in a normal campaign.”
For the first time in 20 years, Maryland voters had a chance last November to decide whether major legislation passed by state lawmakers would become law, thanks largely to the help of an online tool that made it easier to submit valid signatures in referendum petition drives.
The sudden appearance of three ballot questions after two decades without any made some in Annapolis talk about referendums becoming a regular feature on Election Day, giving outnumbered Republicans a new way of battling against the Democratic majority in the Maryland General Assembly.
Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and some lawmakers even mentioned the possibility of raising the bar from the verified 55,736 signatures needed to trigger a referendum.
Besides the “whodunnit” suspense surrounding the alleged forgery of Utah Supreme Court Justice Christine Durham’s name on a ballot initiative petition for an ethics reform law, unanswered questions include “who knew what” and “when did they know it.”
Just a few days before a Supreme Court hearing on issues to determine whether signatures should be allowed to count to get the initiative on the ballot, the Utah Attorney General’s Office filed a motion to have Durham recused because she had signed the petition.
Frustrated by a recent appeals court ruling that invalidates the state’s lethal injection procedures, supporters of the death penalty in California aim to bring a suspended system back to life.
San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos and other California death penalty supporters hope to circumvent legal challenges to executions through a new initiative measure. It would put in place a single drug injection procedure for inmates who have been sentenced to death, such as the infamous Night Stalker serial killer Richard Ramirez, who died Friday.
If you want to know the definition of grassroots, don’t ask the folks attempting to recall Senate President John Morse or his supporters who want the recall to fail.
They have widely different opinions on what is a grassroots movement as evidenced by their statements this week when recall signatures were turned into the secretary of state. Recall backers collected twice as many signatures as needed to force a special election.
A Democratic state senator who backed a package of gun control measures will find out soon if he will face a recall election.
Opponents of Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs turned in 16,046 petition signatures to state officials Monday in an effort to force a new election. They need 7,178 signatures to force a recall election. The Colorado Secretary of State has 15 business days to verify signatures.
Morse vowed to fight the recall effort, saying he doubted opponents have raised 16,000 valid petition signatures.
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