AUSTIN, Texas - With state election deadlines closing in, the legal fight over whether to keep indicted former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the November ballot moves next to a higher court.So it's months before the election, and months ago the candidate resigned. State law allows changes of party candidates all the way to the end of August.
The Texas Republican Party plans to appeal federal Judge Sam Sparks' ruling Thursday that DeLay must remain on the ballot even though he resigned from office and isn't actively campaigning for re-election.
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DeLay won his March primary and then announced a month later that he would be leaving office and moving to Virginia. DeLay left Congress on June 9.
Republican Party state chair Tina Benkiser said under state law she could declare DeLay "ineligible" for the ballot because she received proof of his move out of state, thus allowing a party committee to name a new nominee. Had DeLay simply "withdrawn," the party wouldn't be allowed to replace him in the race under state law.
Democrats sued to keep the Republicans from removing DeLay's name.
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The judge [a Democrat] agreed, saying he was not convinced that DeLay would not return to Texas.
And yet the Democrats want to sue to keep a fictitious candidate as the Republican "nominee".
Isn't that taking away choice from The People?
I mean, isn't that the VERY SAME argument used in New Jersey in 2002?
Remember that case?
KWAME HOLMAN: Robert Torricelli had received bad news over the weekend. A Newark Star Ledger Eagleton Rutgers poll of probable New Jersey voters showed Torricelli trailing his Republican challenger businessman Doug Forrester 37 to 34 percent. Back in June that same poll had Torricelli up by 14 points. Apparently convinced that the news was not going to get any better, Torricelli today gave up his bid for re-election five weeks before election day.Instead of months, it was a handful of weeks before the actual election.
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Torricelli's troubles were well publicized: Charges he failed to disclose thousands of dollars in gifts he received from businessman David Chang in exchange for political favors. Chang now is serving an 18-month sentence for illegal contributions to Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign. No criminal charges were ever brought against Torricelli, but in late July he was severely admonished for his activities by his colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee.
And the Democrat senatorial candidate was polling very poorly. In 2002, control of the Senate was up for grabs.
So the party wanted to pull out their losing candidate, and replace him with a ringer. In went tired old Lautenberg.
However, state law specifically forbade making ballot changes at such a late date.
And yet the New Jersey Supreme Court quickly returned a decision that making a last-minute change to rescue a poorly-polling candidate for a privileged political machine was just fine and dandy, in spite of the law:
After his original opponent, Robert Torricelli, abandoned his re-election bid under a cloud of scandal, Forrester sued to stop Democratic Party efforts to have Frank Lautenberg replace Torricelli. The New Jersey Supreme Court rejected Forrester's claim, in a decision written by Peter Verniero, a Republican, stating that "We see what advantage this has for Mr. Forrester; we fail to see what advantage this has for the people of New Jersey." Forrester was defeated by Lautenberg 54%-44%.In other words, the People deserved a Choice!
Even though the People were already apparently choosing, weren't they?
They just weren't choosing correctly.
And in spite of the fact that there were several 3rd-party candidates also running against the Republican. These candidates testified in front of the court that it was insulting to not consider them valid choices, and that only one particular party actual counted as "a choice."
Why won't they use the same reasoning to "benefit" the people of Texas?
Do they have no shame?
