Marshall Home™, sovereign citizen

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Blog for Arizona has warned you about this "sovereign citizen." City of Tucson Mayor & Council Candidate Filings: Let The Games Begin!

[T]he winner of the craziest story of this election goes to Marshall Home™ (I kid you not, he trademarked his name) who has filed his petitions to run for mayor, even though the Tucson City Clerk has confirmed that Home™ is a county resident and is not eligible to run in the City of Tucson. Oh, there will be a legal challenge to his petitions.

This guy is a major piece of work. See Marshall Home™, Billionaire Democratic Mayoral Candidate, is None of the Preceding Things (must read and photos). He appears to be a "sovereign citizen" who uses "paper terrorism," i.e., filing bogus liens or financial claims against the government and government officials, or anyone else he doesn't like. I understand he has had some very recent run-ins with the law. Home™ likes to wear a Burger King™ paper crown and say he is a "king of America." That strikes me as rather un-American given that Americans fought a revolution to kick out any vestiges of royalty in this country. I keep telling you, there should be a mental competency exam for candidates to run for political office.

Marshall Home™ demonstrated that he is a few bricks short of a full load by filing his own lawsuit in which he alleges his hatred for lawyers. The Tucson Weekly reports Marshall Home Sues To Have Democratic Rival Jonathan Rothschild Kicked Off the Ballot, Says Campaign Slogan Will Be "Avoid Lawyers and Skunks". Right back at ya, buddy!:

["Not the Democrat"] mayoral candidate Marshall Home, whose candidacy is likely to face a legal challenge over his eligibility, today filed a preemptive lawsuit to try to knock Democrat Jonathan Rothschild off the ballot.

Home is pinning his legal hopes on the fact that Rothschild is a lawyer.

“I don’t want to see lawyers anywhere in our government,” Home says. “I don’t even want to see them in the judiciary. … My slogan is: Avoid skunks and lawyers.”

In his lawsuit, Home claims that lawyers, because they serve in the judiciary, are ineligible to serve in the executive branch of government.

Rothschild said he hadn’t seen the lawsuit yet, but he said that Home’s argument that lawyers can’t serve in public office “would be a novel legal argument. I guess a judge will have to decide that.”

Home, who has filed so many frivolous lawsuits in federal bankruptcy court that he was legally designated a “Vexatious Litigant” last month, backs up his argument with a brief excerpt from a 1955 opinion written then-Arizona Attorney General Robert Morrison. We’re not lawyers, but at first glance, it doesn’t scan as the type of precedent that courts typically consider.

* * *

Home, who seems a little unclear on the difference between a party endorsement and winning a primary nomination, also says the executive committee of Democratic Party has “completely ignored the rules of the election department” by voting to endorse Rothschild “in a hidden caucus.”

“That violates the constitution in a number of ways,” Home says.

The only problem with that legal argument: While it endorsed Democratic incumbents on the council, the Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee did not endorse Rothschild until after Home filed his lawsuit.

While he’s upset that [Democratic] party officials have given Rothschild an endorsement, Home himself was a registered Republican from 1993 until 2010, when he changed his registration to an independent at an address outside the city limits (which will be the foundation of the lawsuit to have him kicked off the ballot, according to Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Rogers). It wasn’t until March 21 of this year, three days after he filed paperwork to run as a Democrat for mayor because Democrats have a significant voter-registration advantage, that he registered as a member of the Democratic Party.

“I’m not a Democrat, I’m not a Republican, I’m an American,” Home says. “I don’t care about those things.”

* * *

Home knows that Democratic Party officials are planning a lawsuit to knock him off the ballot, but “they’re kinda late” because he’s filed a lawsuit against them first.

“Their suit is going to look like revenge,” he says.

Uh, riiiight. After reading the not well-plead (frivolous) complaint of Marshall Home™, this is one that can be summarily dismissed on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim. Ask for an award of attorneys fees and costs to make his day.

The legal challenge to the petitions of Marshall Home™, however, are not so easily dismissed. As noted above, he is a resident of Pima County and is not eligible to run for office in the City of Tucson. (I understand that the Tucson City Clerk disqualified the signature of Marshall Home™ from his own petition because he did not provide a valid address). And there is his admission that he is a "sham" Democratic candidate for convenience sake. Political parties have a constitutional right of association to prevent sham candidates from using the party label. See last year's "Green Scheme" scandal in Phoenix.

As nutty as this guy is, what really bothers me is the people who signed their signatures to his petitions — what does this say about them? They are out there walking around the streets of Tucson.