Lautenburg will be on ballon in NJ !
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my New Jersey or General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
High Court Won't Take N.J. Sen. CaseMon Oct 7, 2:04 PM ETBy ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court refused Monday to be drawn into an election fight that resurrected memories of the court's contentious intervention in the presidential election two years ago.
Democrats may now go ahead with plans to replace Sen. Robert Torricelli (news, bio, voting record) with former Sen. Frank Lautenberg on the Nov. 5 ballot in their effort to retain their one-seat hold on the Senate.
New Jersey Republicans had called the switch a political ploy intended to dump a candidate who seemed sure to lose in favor of a potential winner. They asked the Supreme Court to stop the Democrats, arguing that the candidate swap came too close to Election Day.
The high court did not explain its reasons for rejecting the GOP appeal.
Word from the high court came on the first day of the new Supreme Court term, and a week after Torricelli bowed out of his re-election race.
Torricelli said he would step aside after polls showed him losing ground to Republican challenger Douglas Forrester who had made Torricelli's ethics problems the focus of his campaign.
The Democrats quickly chose Lautenberg as a replacement, and the Republicans went to court.
New Jersey's highest court unanimously approved the candidate switch, a decision that Forrester's lawyers had said "opens the doors of American elections to considerable mischief."
The Republicans appealed to the high court last Thursday, arguing that the candidate swap was both illegal and unconstitutional. State law prevents such an 11th hour switch, and it could strip voting rights from absentee and overseas voters, the GOP argued.
About 1,700 absentee and overseas military ballots have already been mailed with Torricelli's name on them.
If the state ruling stood, "political parties will be encouraged to withdraw losing candidates on the eve of election, replacing them with candidates who have not gone through the rigors of the nomination process in hopes of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat," Republicans argued to the justices in a court filing last Thursday.
There was plenty of time to reprint ballots, Democrats assured the Supreme Court in paperwork filed Friday.
"It may be that Forrester believes he will be politically hurt by the New Jersey Supreme Court's judgment and is simply unwilling to say so," Democrats wrote.
As in the 2000 election fight, Republicans contested a ruling from a majority-Democrat state court.
The Supreme Court surprised both sides by jumping into the fight two years ago, ending ballot recounts in Florida by a bitter 5-4 vote. Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) had sought the recounts in hopes of erasing George W. Bush's tiny lead.
New Jersey Republicans are also pursuing a separate challenge in federal court in Trenton on behalf of two people the party contends could lose their votes.
The Supreme Court case is 02-A-289.
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&ncid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20021007/ap_on_el_se/new_jersey_senate
Ping a few Texans too.....
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No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!