[ambrose]

ping

[ambrose]

Is Shelley the new Katherine Harris?

I see I’m not the only one having a hard time getting straight answers from Secretary of State Kevin Shelley about the recall rules. Roll Call reports that a Shelley spokeswoman says it is “unclear whether a scheduled recall election would proceed if Davis resigns before it takes place.” (Article is for paid subscribers only; I got the quote through Rick Hasen’s Election Law blog.) Shelley’s office has also been painfully slow in answering questions I’ve had about how things will unfold, and up until now I’ve given them the benefit of the doubt, figuring they’re new in the job and a little bit overwhelmed. But the longer this goes on the more I’m inclined to suspect that Shelley wants to keep things vague so he can make it up as he goes along—sort of a Democratic version of the post-election legal interpretations in Florida 2000. I don’t think Davis is going to resign, but shouldn’t Shelley know by now what the law says about the effect of a resignation in the face of a recall? And even if we observers think the law is unclear, shouldn’t Shelley have an opinion, since that’s where the process of sorting it out would begin?

Posted by dweintraub at 07:34 AM

[friendly]

Laws fon't apply to democrats, lawyers, and other sociopaths. Laws are for the little people.

[friendly]

Laws don't apply to democrats, lawyers, and other sociopaths. Laws are for the little people.

[TheAngryClam]

This is why Ted Costa and company's "verification" (read: building a future direct-mail list) of the signatures is such a bad idea.

Should have just turned the damned things over and let the state workers who don't do anything anyway have at them.

[Imal]

This is looking more like a mirror image of Florida every day. Instead of a Republican Secretary of State fighting to slow a recount and elect a Republican president, we have a Democratic Secretary of State acting to slow a signature count to prevent the recall of a Democratic governor.

Whatever drugs this guy is on, I don't want anywhere near me or my family.

[ambrose]

Bump

[Libertina]

days thereafter, or more frequently at the discretion of the elections official
Seems clear to me that this jerk rat is just trying to thwart the will of the people. It's a pretty big tide right now and he might want to think twice, provided he can do so.

[B-bone]

ping

I will never doubt the wisdom of the common 'tator.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

So if Dems actively subvert the California constitution, what follows? Constitutional crisis? Will the feds help us? Revolution?:-)

[heleny]

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has interpreted the law to say that county registrars need only be verifying the signatures they received by June 16. The rest they may set aside until the end of the next reporting period on July 23. Then they will report that number to Shelley and he will give them the go-ahead to verify the second batch. But they won’t be required to report that new number until Aug. 22.

If they report the new number August 22, Shelley has 10 days to certify the results, which would be September 2, 2003, still more than 180 days before March 2, 2004.

If the Recall people turn in all remaining signatures, say on July 4th, before the end of this "reporting period," would the counties still have to wait until this artificial "period" ends, or would the final submission date begin a 30 day period during which the signatures must be counted and verified, such as for initiatives when all signatures are turned in at once?

“They’re required to provide us the number of verified signatures received through June 16, for the next reporting period (on July 16),” the spokesman said. “If they want to verify signatures received after June 16th, the law does not address that issue. They’re not required to do so.”

Since counties still can verify signatures continuously without having the Secretary of State tell them to do so, we just need to have sufficient signatures turned in to the conservative counties, including the high-signature San Diego and Orange counties, and pressure the local elections officials to start verifying the signatures; hopefully this can overcome any problems with elections officials in the liberal counties, where signature counts are low anyway.

[CyberAnt]

Somebody needs to remind Mr. Shelly - HE CAN BE RECALLED OR IMPEACHED - if that's what he'd like. He better stop messing with the law and do his job - otherwise ...???

[ladyinred]

This is exactly what we thought he would do. It is not necessary, but he is playing politics as usual for a democrat.

[ladyinred]

This is looking more like a mirror image of Florida every day. Instead of a Republican Secretary of State fighting to slow a recount and elect a Republican president, we have a Democratic Secretary of State acting to slow a signature count to prevent the recall of a Democratic governor.

I am rather surprised by this statement. Harris wasn't trying to slow a recount,she was going by Florida law. This is a case of ignoring the law by Shelly.

[lainie]

KFI AM640 is going over this column right now.

[CyberCowboy777]

Shelly's info...
916-653-7244

kshelley@ss.ca.gov

[gitmo]

Do they have to count military signatures?

[tdadams]

All your signatures are belong to us.