Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Last week, Judge James E. Marner ruled in the case of Yolanda Parker et al. v. City of Tucson et. al. (C20134029), the lawsuit to challenge the sufficiency of the initiative petitions filed by the
Committee for Sustainable Retirement, the local front group for ballot
initiative activist Paul Jacob and the
Liberty Initiative Fund.
Judge Marner struck a number of the petitions submitted as invalid
for the reasons stated in his ruling. The Tucson City Clerk was ordered
to remove these invalid petition sheets and to recalculate the number of
signatures eligible for verification and submit the appropriate number
of signatures in the form of random sample to the Pima County Recorder's
Office for determination of an error rate as mandated by A.R.S.
§19-121.01. The Tucson City Clerk was to accomplish this by no later than
August 23, 2013 (today).
Counsel for the
Committee for Sustainable Retirement, Lisa Hauser, who never much cares for what a Judge has to say, filed a Motion For Stay and Motion For Reconsideration on August 22, 2013 — which is her way of saying "sorry Judge, but you are wrong and I am right, as always." You can read the motion Here.
The Court has set a time for hearing of the motion on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 at 9:00 a.m. You can read the Ruling
Here.
The Court further ordered that counsel for the City of Tucson contact counsel for the Pima County Recorder's Office to determine the Recorder's position on recalcualting an error rate, and if the Recorder intends to recalculate the error rate, when this is expected to occur. The Recorder is also to appear at the hearing.
The Court further ordered counsel for the Plaintiffs and Lisa Hauser to consult and determine if they can agree on a specific number of signatures that were disqualified by the Court's August 16, 2013 Ruling.
So we are going into extra innings next week. Stay tuned.