Posted on 07/21/2010 5:35:02 PM PDT by ruination
Madison — State elections officials narrowly rejected a Milwaukee Assembly candidate's attempt to run with the slogan "NOT the 'whiteman's bitch' " under her name on the ballot.
Ieshuh Griffin, a Milwaukee independent running to replace retiring Rep. Annette "Polly" Williams (D-Milwaukee), said in response she would sue the Government Accountability Board for infringing on her freedom of speech.
"I'm not making a derogatory statement toward an ethnic group. I'm stating what I'm not," Griffin told board members. "It's my constitutional right to freedom of speech."
In other action, the state elections agency Wednesday knocked three state Assembly candidates and one congressional candidate off this fall's ballot but kept U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) on it.
Unlike candidates from the established Democratic and Republican parties, independents are allowed a five-word statement of purpose on the ballot to explain to voters what their candidacy is about.
Shane Falk, a staff attorney for the Accountability Board, said that the board had the ability to restrict obscene or derogatory candidate statements from the ballot.
The board staff ruled that the statement should not be allowed. With one member absent, the board voted 3-2 in favor of reversing that ruling and allowing the wording. Under board rules, however, four votes are needed to overturn a staff decision.
As a result, Griffin will be on the ballot with "independent" by her name and nothing else.
Board member Thomas Barland, who voted to allow Griffin to make the statement, said he thought it was not obscene and "not racial." But Roxanne Dunlap of Sussex, a citizen attending the meeting, told the board that she found the statement offensive and believed that a white person making the opposite statement - "not the black man's bitch" - would be sharply criticized.
Griffin, who describes herself as a "30-ish" community activist, said she had attempted unsuccessfully in the past to run for a position as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge. She said she will appeal the board's decision in federal court.
The board found that Republican Paris Procopis, who was attempting to challenge Rep. David Cullen (D-Milwaukee), came up eight signatures short of the 200 needed to gain access to the ballot.
That leaves Cullen without an opponent from a major party, though he will face a challenge by Constitution Party candidate Lisa Becker.
The board also knocked Matt Bitz of Rice Lake off the ballot because he has not lived in Wisconsin long enough, leaving just one Democrat in the race to replace retiring Rep. Mary Hubler (D-Rice Lake). Four Republicans will appear on the Sept. 14 primary ballot, and the winner will face Democrat Steve Perala of Barron on Nov. 2.
The state constitution says members of the Legislature must have lived in Wisconsin for at least a year, and the board determined that provision meant the year prior to taking office. Bitz, who was raised in Rice Lake, moved back there in May, after living in New York City in recent years.
The board knocked Assembly candidate Andrew Wiesniewski off the ballot because he failed to collect enough signatures. Wiesniewski sought to run as a Republican to challenge Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer of Manitowoc, who recently switched his parties from Democrat to independent and faces a Democratic challenger, Kerry Trasik.
The board also dismissed a ballot challenge against Baldwin brought by the Young Republicans of Dane County saying she should be disqualified for running for reelection because she had listed her campaign office rather than her home address on her nomination papers.
The board said Baldwin could continue to list her office address because, as an openly lesbian member of Congress, she said she had received threats.
Republicans Chad Lee of Mount Horeb and Peter Theron of Madison are running against Baldwin.
An independent running against U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) was also removed from the ballot.
The board found independent Bill Tucker of New Berlin had just 977 valid signatures, 23 short of the 1,000 needed.
Democrat John Heckenlively of Racine withstood a challenge to his signatures and will remain on the ballot for that race. Libertarian Joseph Kexel of Kenosha is also running.
Well that's because that's DIFFERENT.
Ms. Griffin should take her parents to court for saddling her with that spelling of a beautiful name.
Somebody has to decide what goes on a ballot or there really would be anarchy.
That doesn’t mean this woman was properly or improperly treated, it just means that election boards do work that is essential to democracy. This year in my county there were some candidates removed from the primary ballot. One guy had a whole sheet of signatures done in one person’s handwriting and another only had to get 37 signatures to get on the ballot but had so many signatures from outside her district of 3,400 people that she couldn’t even handle that. No “allowers,” that felon and that incompetent end up on the ballot and possibly controlling the business of a county of 50,000 people for four years.
That said, I think they should put her statement on the ballot. One of the great things about free speech is that it makes it much easier to spot the idiots.
I agree that someone must choose how to print the final ballot and certainly fraudulent cases must be excluded, but deciding how a candidate may use their allotted 5 words (independents only) should not be within their control. Something stinks here.
The panel is wrong, but I doubt there’s corruption. It’s not like they shut down a candidate who crusaded for marriage or smaller government or put “God Bless America” in their statement. They ruled against someone who put forward something blatantly racist.
I just don’t see how that should be up to them. So it’s racist, the voters should know.
A bitch, nonetheless.
Maybe if Robert Byrd had been allowed to tout his KKK membership he wouldn’t have been elected so many times, maybe not, but who’s to say?
“Ieshuh Griffin: NOT the ‘whiteman’s bitch’ “ under her name on the ballot.”
Then who’s bitch you be?
OK, no offense, but I’m wondering why you appear to be responding without reading.
I did not say it was OK that they stopped her. I said that suspecting them of some sort of corruption (”Something stinks here”) isn’t warranted because the statement is so blatantly racist.
They shouldn’t censor it, but there’s no evidence that they did so for any reason other than opposing racism, or any reason to suspect it. If you have some, tee it up.
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