Derek Simmonsen has the news:
The review by the county Board of Elections was prompted by a recent Maryland Court of Appeals decision that changes how signatures on petition forms are verified.Norman, rightfully so, was shocked at the news. It appears that this review happened after counts on the second batch of signatures was halted due to a lawsuit filed by Greenburg Gibbons. Norman argues that this review is unfair because it is a retroactive review of signatures that Norman claims he acquired using guidance provided by the Board of Elections.
Board of Elections Director Betty Nordaas said today that the board went back and reviewed the initial batch of signatures in light of a December Maryland Court of Appeals decision.
The review was suggested by the state attorney general’s office on March 11, according to a letter Nordaas gave to Norman the following day.
The court decision placed tighter restrictions on how signatures should be verified, Nordaas said. Voters now must sign their names on the petition form using the exact name that is on their voter registration; variations on a name will no longer be accepted, she said.
After elections workers invalidated more than 1,000 signatures, Nordaas said the referendum failed because there was no way for Norman’s group to get the 2,500 signatures needed as part of the first batch.
Very curious case, particularly since the precedent came from a case involving the Montgomery County BOE and a lawsuit surrounding "gender identity" as a protected voter class. It seems totally unrelated.
That in mind, it seems like the precedent established in this case would not have been apparent to the Howard County BOE. The state AG's office may have found this after the lawsuit was filed and decided to consider this review before taking a look at the Gibbons lawsuit.
I would be surprised, too, if I were Norman. This is a bizarre development.
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The following was posted by Marc Norman on the HCCA listserve:
ReplyDeleteEllicott City resident, Paul Kendall, has filed suit in Federal court seeking to overturn the March 12 Board of Elections decision to nullify the CB 58 referendum. You may recall that the BoE took this action last week after retroactively invoking a new protocol for petition review that resulted in over 85% of the petition signatures being invalidated.
Mr. Kendall’s lawsuit, which names the County/State BoE and Howard County as defendants, seeks reinstatement of the BoE’s January 22 petition certification and asks the court to order the BoE to reinstitute their processing of over 9,300 signatures that was suspended in February.
The lawsuit text and Mr. Kendall’s explanation can be found on the Howard County Issues website (Land Development tab) or by clicking on the following link, http://www.howardcountyissues.org/land_development.html . The complaint’s central theme focuses on allegations that the BoE has deprived citizens of their First Amendment constitutional rights as well as denying their right to due process.
On a related note, it is expected that the petition’s sponsor, Howard County Citizens for Open Government, will appeal the March 12 BoE decision later this week.
I went through the documentation last night and didn't walk away with any Earth-shattering precedent for the case. Then again, this is a weird one. As a layman, I think it would boil down to these questions:
ReplyDelete1. Was the HoCo BOE aware of the Doe ruling while Mr. Norman was gathering his first OR second wave of signatures?
2. They say that ignorance of the law is no reason to commit a crime. Is ignorance of legal precedent no reason to not go back and apply it?
The Howard County Delegation will be holding an informal briefing for Delegation Members to discuss issues relating to citizen referendum and election laws, on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 9:30am. This meeting will be held in Rm. 218 in the House of Delegates. The public is welcomed to attend.
ReplyDeleteJoan Oliver
Staff to the Howard County House Delegation
phone: 410-841-3360 or 301-858-3360
fax: 410-841-3361 or 301-858-3361
e-mail: hoc1@mlis.state.md.us
The following was posted by Paul Kendall on the HCCA listserve:
ReplyDeleteTo the anti referendum apologists—
The issue of payment for those who collect signatures was decided once and for all by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in a case called Myers v. Grant. In that case the Supreme Court declared that it was unconstitutional to prevent persons from being paid to collect signatures. What is most interesting about that case is not so much what it decided, though critically important, but what the timing of that decision says about our government here in Howard County. What it says in my view is that our government here in Howard County takes a rather cavalier attitude toward fundamental constitutional rights because it took Howard County 20 years to finally agree to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling in this matter. It took two rather forceful letters from our board of elections (after 16 years) to Ken Ulman first as a council member and then as county executive to do something legislatively. Myers v. Grant was decided in 1988. What is actually most disappointing and serves to reinforce my sense of the failure of our elected officials to take their constitutional duties seriously is the fact that the legislative “fix” itself, did nothing more than repackage the very restrictions declared unconstitutional by Myers v. Grant and serve them up in only slightly different wrapping. That legislative disaster is now in Howard County Circuit court and will very soon be removed to Federal District Court.
The point is, I think everyone should think about the possibility that some of our elected officials may not be as entirely forthright as they should be about whose interests they represent. Maybe it is a lack of forthrightness, maybe just a plain lack of courage to do the right thing, or maybe intellectual laziness or invincible ignorance. One thing I feel very strongly about is that not one of the elected officials I have met or interacted with has demonstrated to me even the slightest idea of what true public service means. I don’t even believe they have any accurate idea of what their election to public office means. From what I see, and, incidentally, what forms the basis of what I am challenging in various courts, our government officials have become, for whatever reason, divorced from true adherence to the fundamental principles on which our system of government rests and that, on all levels, these officials have ceased in their justification for holding office because they have broken the public trust in fundamental ways that do violence to the very social contract that we as citizens accept as part of our participation in organized society. In a small way, I hope my legal actions will serve a larger purpose of educating the public about what exactly these principles are and why these officials no longer serve or deserve the public trust.
To all of you out there who say we elected these folks and that our duty lies in accepting their decisions (and, let’s be honest, in particular, decisions that these apologists know and support for entirely selfish reasons), I say to you one thing: Brown v. Board of Education, and the whole long tradition of our judicial branch of government who have been called upon time and time again to rectify actions of our executive branch officials that have reached unconstitutional proportions or in lesser ways become arbitrary, capricious and thus illegal. When you say to me, I must accept unreasonable restrictions on the exercise of my constitutional rights: I ask you with all sincerity: Can you possibly be serious? Have you forgotten what our tripartite form of government is all about? I cannot imagine a more uninformed and disappointing point of view than that expressed by those who say that people like me should sit down and accept the decisions of our “masters.” You may be willing to accept such restrictions but I say with every ounce of conviction I can muster: NO! NO! NEVER! As long as I breath, NEVER! People throughout our history and tradition fought and died to say exactly what I say to you tonight. I feel the commitment these forbearers gave to this struggle, those people who sacrificed to establish these principles on which we operate. I urge everyone to think about what our constitutional rights mean even in the context of this parochial battle here in Turf Valley and recognize that the Constitution applies to issues grand and small and that here in Howard County the right of referendum is a constitutionally recognized reservation of power by the people, from which all power in our government emanates, to secure certain defined rights and privileges, and is, therefore, a most profound and fundamental right that should be approached with great respect and deference for whatever issue it finds application.
Paul Kendall
Those are quite the accusations from Mr. Kendall. Of course, they have to be taken in context given that he is Mr. Norman's counsel in this lawsuit against the HoCo BOE.
ReplyDeleteWhat Mr. Kendall is claiming is quite beyond what the BOE is doing vis a vis the judicial precedent that they are - admittedly - appearing to apply retroactively to Mr. Norman's signatures. He is claiming that government officials, which are voting citizens, have malintent when it comes to protecting the liberties of the people that they represent. To me, that is a preposterous and libelous claim.
Mr. Kendall also is making an accusation that has no merit pertaining to the so-called "apologists" - a loosely used term at best, again libelous at worst. Personally, I have never said that anyone pursuing the referendum should sit back and allow their "masters" to make all decisions for them. For one, I have said that choosing to take one land use decision to referendum does not solve the larger land use problem in the county and that its heart lies with the people who administer the process. The blanket statement that Mr. Kendall makes is both faulty and presumptuous.
Overall, though, Mr. Kendall is aggrandizing this situation to well beyond what the actual legal question is. That question is what I addressed in my initial response in this post.
Did the BOE know the precedent before Mr. Norman began collecting his signatures? Did they simply ignore applying it until he had gained enough to meet the threshold? At what point in the process is it too late to be able to apply legal precedent to a signature collection drive?
I don't know the answer to that, but my hope is that this was not somehow selectively applied to Mr. Norman's case. Again, while I vehemently disagree with the approach he is taking, good on him if he has been able to gather 5,000 verifiable signatures to take CB58 to referendum. But, his counsel does him great disservice to aggrandize - and borderline lie - about the real issues in the case.
Paul Kendall does not represent Marc Norman or Howard County Citizens for Open Government in any of the filings they have submitted. His Federal lawsuits (posted on HowardCountyIssues.com under Land Development) have been filed "pro se" (on his own behalf).
ReplyDelete