On October 3, an Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County declined to remove Olivia Cortes from the ballot in next month’s special recall legislative election. The ballot will continue to list three candidates. The case is Boettcher v Bennett, cv 2011-015853. See this post at Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog, which has a link to the 9-page decision. The case had been filed by voters who had charged that one of the three candidates on the ballot was only running because supporters of State Senator Russell Pearce put her on the ballot, to increase the chances that Pearce would survive this special recall election. Opponents of Pearce wanted only one person on the ballot against Pearce. But the judge ruled courts have no business removing candidates from the ballot based on the motives of those candidates. UPDATE: here is an essay about why the judge was right, by Law Professor Anthony Tsontakis, who defended Cortes.
How about ruling that the Pearce opponents are certified election law NUTCASES — to be put in a padded room with some election law books to study for about 100 years ???
Surprised to hear that Mr. Tsontakis is identified as a law professor. Sad for that school. He couldn’t make a decent objection during the entire course of the hearing and was even made fun of by the judge when he actually made the mistakes he had previously objected to. I don’t hold this against this young attorney who graduated law school in 2009 and apparently had a one year internship afterward. The guy hasn’t even practiced for a year as far as anyone can tell. He’ll get better with time.
The only thing that was missing was Mrs. Cortes’ outright admission that was in cahoots. It was obvious that she’d been sand-papered with a few talking points before the hearing (“I’m in it to win.”). The obviousness was borne out by the fact that just about the only time she could make a complete sentence was when she reverted to her talking points.
I don’t blame her however, for being completely manipulated. She’s not well equipped to deal with Beelzebub Western.
All sorts of elections with *name-game* candidates – especially in party hack primaries when an incumbent is NOT running. — i.e. how many in 2011-2012 in the new gerrymander districts ???