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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (8204)	9/16/2003 10:21:01 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 794379

NBC's "First Read" California The thinking in this huge state’s comparably small political circles is that the 9th Circuit panel’s decision gets overturned because the court, fairly or unfairly, is seen as being out of step with the rest of the nation. Plus, delaying the contest until March would introduce a host of new consequences. But what does happen if the election is delayed? Tim Hodson of California State University (Sacramento) explains that delaying the vote would cost the cash-strapped state even more money. “There will be a significant cost impact to counties that have already been spending millions of dollars preparing for the ballot,” he said. In addition, it would prolong the political uncertainty that now exists; Senate Republicans, he said, are already refusing to work with Democrats because they’re hoping Davis will get recalled and a Republican will succeed him. Who actually benefits from a delay is wide open to interpretation, Hodson says. The CW is that Davis would benefit because the March election would coincide with the Democratic presidential primary, bringing higher Democratic turnout, and because Davis would have more time to better his standing among voters. Yet so much could happen between now and then — the economy could tank even further, or Davis could face another unexpected natural or man-made crisis. The same is true for Schwarzenegger, Hodson says. He would have more time to show voters he’s a thoughtful candidate — or that extra time could give him more of an opportunity to stumble. The Los Angeles Times: “Californians who already have voted - more than 100,000 statewide, including 30,000 in Los Angeles County - were left uncertain whether they would get a chance to vote again if the election were postponed. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley issued a statement saying that voters who planned to cast absentee ballots should still do so.” “State lawyers face questions on whether a postponement would mean reopening the ballot to allow candidates to remove their names or new candidates to join the race. State law generally requires that the ballot be set within 59 days of the election.” “And voting officials, already struggling to produce an election on a short deadline, were handed a new problem to consider: whether combining the lengthy recall ballot with the primary in March would produce a behemoth too large for the newer voting machines to handle.” The Sacramento Bee has an election law expert saying the legal dispute could be resolved in several different ways. “The U.S. Supreme Court conceivably could decline to review the appeals court order, meaning the election will not be held until March, said Prof. Floyd Feeney at the University of California, Davis.” “A high court justice also could extend the appeals court’s seven-day stay for a longer period of time to give the Supreme Court more time to study the case, said Feeney, who teaches election law and criminal justice.” “Or, it could take up the matter and focus on which issue is more important: the possibility of some voters not having their vote counted or preserving the state’s constitutionally written recall procedures.” The Washington Post lays out the decision potentially facing the SCOTUS: “If the panel ruling is not reversed by a larger 9th Circuit body, the Supreme Court justices, for whom the stress and strain — both personal and institutional — of 2000 are still a fresh memory, will face a choice. They can stay out of the California case and risk permitting what they may view as a debatable interpretation of Bush v. Gore to stand, or they can plunge in and assume the risk that they will once again be criticized for partisanship no matter what they decide.” The Washington Post also uses the court decision as a peg to look at waning interest in election reform. A delay could mean more time for reports on Schwarzenegger like this Los Angeles Times project: “A Times review of more than 100 examples of his interviews and writings from the past 30 years reveals that Schwarzenegger’s habit of making off-color remarks about sex and women did not end in the 1970s, despite his defenders’ claims to the contrary.” On Oprah yesterday, the New York Post writes, Maria Shriver said her husband is nothing but respectful to women, despite the allegations. But Schwarzenegger managed to embarrass his wife: “When Winfrey pressed the actor whether the drug use and group sex really happened, the Terminator said he didn’t remember. ‘But this was the time when I was saying things like “a pump [lifting weights] is better than [sex],” all those kinds of things,’ said Schwarzenegger, sending the audience into wild laughter as a mortified Shriver playfully slapped her husband across the mouth for his use of a slang term to describe sex.” (What he actually said, however, was arguably worse than what the Post airbrushes.) msnbc.com