Republicans in this state have had just about enough from these mealy mouthed democrats. Rossi is highly regarded by people from every side of the electorate. And 69-70% of the voters think there should be a new election.
Where ever it came from.......and no one knows at this point......fraud played a big role in the Nov election. I don't think that tactic.....appearance of sour grapes is going to work this time. Repubs are not rolling over........... for a refreshing change.
M
Monday, January 24, 2005, 12:00 A.M. Pacific
Democrats prefer election fight at Capitol
By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter
OLYMPIA — The Democrats' on-again, off-again threat to force the governor's election dispute to the Legislature — which their party controls — is definitely on again.
"We believe that the courts have no jurisdiction to hear an election contest for the office of governor," Democratic attorney Jenny Durkan said in Chelan County Superior Court last week.
The state constitution, Democrats say, requires a legislative settlement to the disputed election of Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat.
On Friday, the party filed papers arguing that Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges should dismiss the case brought by Republican candidate Dino Rossi and his party.
If the court allows Rossi's legal challenge, Democrats said, "It could lead to conflicting decisions from this court and the Legislature as to which candidate had actually won the election."
Republicans will file papers opposing the Democrats' motion asking Bridges to dismiss the case. They say a long history of state judges hearing election challenges shows the issue belongs in a courthouse.
But as an "insurance policy," Republicans filed their own "election contest petition" with the Legislature on Friday, said Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane.
"We think we're going to win our court case. But, God forbid, we don't, we need to cover our bases."
With Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, the Legislature is not friendly ground for Rossi, a former Republican state senator.
"One would certainly hope that legislators would look at the evidence fairly," Lane said. "But the reality is that this Legislature is controlled by Democrats."
On Friday, Republicans sent the House clerk and secretary of the Senate the election-contest petition that largely replicates their lawsuit filed in Chelan County Superior Court. Attorney Rob Maguire wrote that Republicans were trying only to be prepared in case Democrats are successful in moving the fight to the Capitol.
At times Democrats have dangled the prospect of going to the Legislature as sort of a procedural bogeyman, something they suggested was to be avoided. At other times, they embrace the idea as the proper constitutionally mandated forum.
On Dec. 1, as Gregoire trailed in the vote count, Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Sam Reed trying to get him to change the way county auditors were counting ballots. The letter closed with this: "If there is to be an election contest as to this office, the constitution requires that it be decided by the Legislature, not the judiciary, and that would inevitably drag into the early months of next year."
On Dec. 14, though, chief Democratic attorney David McDonald said Democrats only thought Rossi would go to the Legislature and had not implied they would seek that remedy.
"No matter what my lawyers may have said in the letter that someone else tries to misinterpret, I am the one who makes that decision and I have never threatened to do it," McDonald said.
And two weeks ago, Democratic lawmakers argued the Legislature should have no role in settling the election dispute.
They were trying at the time to kill a Republican legislative move to postpone Gregoire's inauguration for two weeks.
"We don't adjudicate the election," Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said during the joint session Jan. 11.
Brown said the Legislature has given that power to the courts. Reading that section of the constitution dealing with contested elections for governor and other statewide officials, she said: "Contested elections for such officers shall be decided by the Legislature in such manner as shall be determined by law."
"Fortunately, previous legislators had the wisdom to pass a contested-election law," Brown said. "If it were not there, I believe our job today would in fact be very different; that the place to answer the questions would be here, that the place perhaps to bring the evidence forward would be here, that it would be our job to set up a process to fairly adjudicate that process."
Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, said the founders "expressly kept us out of that process. It's not our job. We do not want to step across that boundary in to that other process and exert our power.
"Leave it alone. Let it work."
But in the court papers filed Friday, Democratic attorneys full embraced the Legislature as the proper place to settle the election.
In court, Democrats rely on a legal diagramming of the sentence in the constitution that Brown read. They say the clause "shall be decided" is modified by the phrase "by the Legislature" and means the Legislature decides, not that the Legislature is to pass a law that shall be used to decide.
The Democrats' court filing quotes debate at the state constitutional convention in 1889 where the chairman of the committee who drafted the election contest section, Republican Allen Weir, said, "these partisan contests should be determined by the Legislature."
There's only been one previous governor's election contested. That was in 1941 after Republican Arthur Langlie won by a narrow margin, amid charges from Democrats of fraud.
The Legislature met in joint session and rejected a motion to send the issue to a special investigative committee, stopping the election contest.
Democrats say that shows the Legislature has "accepted its exclusive jurisdiction over election contests for the office of governor."
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