Calif. high court to stay out of recall

Tucson, Arizona  Friday, 8 August 2003
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO - The state Supreme Court on Thursday declined to intervene in California's recall election, clearing the way for an Oct. 7 vote on whether to remove Gov. Gray Davis from office and replace him with some other candidate on the ballot.

The announcement came after the justices held hours of closed-door discussions that began Wednesday, and after more than 400 would-be governors from all political persuasions and backgrounds took out nomination papers in advance of the 5 p.m. Saturday deadline to file their candidacy.

The justices, six Republicans and one Democrat, chose not to enter the politically charged recall arena, two weeks after the election was certified. Never before has a California governor been targeted by a voter-driven recall election that qualified for the ballot.

The court was responding to five petitions. Two asked to block challengers' names from appearing on the ballot. One asked to move two unrelated ballot initiatives to the March primary election.
Another, filed by Davis, a

Democrat, sought to delay the vote until March amid accusations that some of the state's counties would otherwise use outdated punch-card machines. Another asked the court to review the requirement that candidates need only $3,500 and 65 signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot.

Art Torres, chairman of California's Democratic Party, said the justices should have intervened: "It was wrong for the California Supreme Court to ignore real potential voting rights violations."

Before the court ruled, Sal Russo, a GOP political strategist, had expressed optimism the court would stay out of the fray. "I don't think Gray Davis is going to be the governor after Oct. 7," Russo said.

The court was unanimous in dismissing all the petitions except in the latter case.

Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justice Carlos Moreno, the court's only Democrat, wrote that Secretary of State Kevin Shelley chose regulations regarding local recall elections, not statewide recalls. They said the recall should be stopped until the high court reviews the issue, but they were outnumbered.

Several federal lawsuits still remain. A case was filed early Thursday in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging that some of the state's 58 counties are ill-prepared to carry out a vote by Oct. 7, and that others would be forced to use voting machines they had promised a federal judge they would discard.