Posted on 01/15/2012 7:16:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s lawyers filed a motion with a federal appeals court Sunday, seeking to win him a place on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Virginia even though his campaign failed to gather the 10,000 signatures required by state law.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney ruled that Perry, Newt Gingrich and other candidates who failed to make the cut waited too long to pursue their legal challenges, which were brought as ballot printing was getting underway and the mailing of absentee ballots was about to commence. However, Gibney said Perry and the other candidates would like have prevailed on their claim that a Virginia requirement that ballot petition circulators be Virginia residents violates the Constitution.
In a motion filed at 7 A.M. Sunday with the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, Perry’s legal team argues that it would have been too speculative for them to file suit before Perry failed to make the 10,000 signature threshold last month. Perry asks that his name be place on the March 6 ballot or, at a minimum, that the printing of ballots be suspended until his lawsuit can be resolved.
Perry “filed this lawsuit on December 27, 2011, the same date the names of candidates qualified to appear on the ballot were scheduled to be certified and just two business days after Defendant Mullins made a preliminary determination and publicly announced Movant did not submit enough petition signatures to qualify to be placed on the ballot. Prior to this date, Movant reasonably expected to meet the requirements of Virginia’s ‘likely...unconstitutional’ election law, and Respondents could not have suffered any injury, as they could not have begun the process of finalizing their ballot orders,” the Texas governor’s lawyers wrote in their motion (posted here).
“Another illogical result of the District Court’s reasoning is that it would require [Perry] or any candidate for the Presidency, to pre-emptively apply for injunctive relief while there remains a possibility that they may collect the requisite number of signatures to appear on the primary ballot. This is absurd. Candidates for the presidency are focused on running for president, not on fighting legal battles to pre-emptively hold state election laws unconstitutional. When Movant filed his candidacy, he expected to be able to comply with section 24.2-545 of the Virginia State Code. [Perry] timely, and steadfastly, moved to protect his constitutional rights once his claim was ripe, and he cannot be charged with inexcusably or unreasonably delaying the filing of this suit,” the Perry motion said.
About 90 minutes after the motion was filed, the 4th Circuit issued an order requiring the state’s lawyers to respond to Perry’s application by Monday.
Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul made the Virginia ballot. Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman have sought to bootstrap on Perry's suit and are likely to join in his latest motion.
In rejecting Perry's request for an injunction, Gibney cited the long-standing legal doctrine of laches. The principle, which is not set out in any statute or rule and dictates no particular amount of time in which a suit may be filed, mandates that a party asking for relief from a court not delay the case unreasonably in a way that disadvantages another party to the case.
Virginia’s rules are not burdensome and have been well known. They were not changed for this campaign.
It is not Virginia’s fault if these candidates and their highly paid consultants don’t have their act together.
Gingrich is a resident of Virginia - he has no excuse. He obviously has surrounded himself with an incompetent campaign staff. Today it comes out that 1500 signatures were all signed by the same PAID collector.
Is this the kind of incompetence he will surround himself with if he becomes president? We already have one of those in the White House.
The people of Virginia decided how they wanted to run their primaries, but agitators from out of state took the people of Virginia to federal court in an attempt to have a Federal Judge of the Judicial Activist persuasion, force the good people of Virginia to hold a primary as prescribed by the federal government.
In the end, States’ Rights and the 10th Amendment won in the courtroom!
“I for one plan to vote for him in the Illinois primary.”
You will have to wait until the year 2020 as it appears Rick Perry failed to enter his correct home address on some paperwork and will not be on the ballot in Illinois.
“Imagine if Texas had been the first Primary state instead of political backwater states like Iowa and NH. Whole different ballgame.”
Imagine if Rick Perry had not called people who opposed in-state tuitions for illegal aliens and if Perry could actually name the federal departments he wants to abolish.
Actually, the ballgame would be exactly the same.
“Now Texas is being pushed farther back because of some judge’s injunction agains the re-districting which he claims hurts minorities.”
Don’t you really hate it when agitators from out of state file lawsuits against a state’s election rules and hope that an Activist Judge will overturn the will of the people of Texas or the people of Virginia?
Some people have no respect for the 10th Amendment or States’ Rights!
NO..Perry did not "saunter" into the race. Perry took care of his back issues, had serious and successful back surgery and then went into the race to save his country. His only problem was that at the beginning he was physically spent from the surgery, he underestimated his recovery time as most of us do.
I am. (Hint: s/n...TX history :)
Do you like Perry, or not? If you’re ‘well aware of the way he governs’ you should like him very much.
I've supported his Governor campaigns, as he was the best alternative.
I didn't care for his (walked back) guardisil and TransTxCorridor decisions and especially his gross margins/franchise tax legislation. He's done well with business incentives (like the TEF), though.
I think he made a tactical error in his Prez run. He had the support/funds, but made too many gaffes in the debates. I wonder if he got in too quickly after his back surgery...although that still doesn't explain his "heartless" comment :)
Probably. We’d have the same suckers that bought into Herb Cain’s BS or whatever flavour of the month at the time that talked the talk that made follow-the-leader conservatives swoon.
Too bad.
and who meet the qualifications for the office of POTUS stipulated in the U.S. Constitution.
And just for today, I’ve tried to do the same. Perry doesn’t have a prayer and anyone denying it needs a reality check.
It’s time for the other bottom dwellers who are at least conservative to withdraw and endorse Santorum.
No interest in fiscal liberals like Santorum. I don’t want another “compassionate conservative” in the White House.
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