More on Democratic litigation strategy and the recall According to this Los Angeles Times article, here are some possible bases for challenging the recall petitions:

Experts looking for ways to potentially derail the historic vote pointed to requirements in the state election law that specify those who circulate petitions, as well as those who sign them, must be registered voters. Many of the paid signature-gatherers employed by the recall campaign are professionals who move from state to state, following campaigns that hire them and pay per signature.

Davis advisors also said the petitions might be vulnerable because many were downloaded from the Internet, and election law requires that each petition specify the name of the county in which it is circulated, and that all signatures gathered must be from voters registered in that county.

The first ground for challenge seems pretty baseless. In Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, 525 U.S. 182, 197 (1999), the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado Law requiring that circulators be registered voters as a violation of the First Amendment. So even if the California law restricting circulators to registered voters remains on the books, it is unconstitutional. Perhaps the only reason Davis supporters would have for raising this argument is to delay the recall to the later March date.

As for the second basis, here is the petition available for download from "Rescue California." It does include a place for putting down the County of circulation. I have a hard time seeing this argument succeed either.

New article on ballot forms Richard G. Niemi and Paul S. Hernson have published Beyond the Butterfly: The Complexity of U.S. Ballots, 1 Perspectives on Politic2 317 (June 2003). (Thanks to Alec Ewald for the pointer.)

Rep. Flake Advisory Opinion and the California Recall Those persons interested in whether Rep. Issa has violated BCRA by soliciting funds for the California recall effort are following the advisory opinion process at the FEC over a similar issue arising out of Rep. Flake's involvement in a ballot proposition campaign in Arizona. You can access here two proposed versions of the advisory opinion that have been drafted for FEC commissioner approval. Even if Draft "A" is adopted, it is not at all clear what that would mean for whether Issa violated BCRA in the recall efffort, and in any case, even if Issa is eventually found to have violated BCRA that would not slow down the recall process.

Recall News and Commentary News reports suggest California Democrats may follow some litigation strategy to delay the recall vote against Governor Davis. See this San Jose Mercury News report. Dan Weintraub offers these thoughts on why Democrats may want to rush the recall to the ballot. Other articles include reports in: the Los Angeles Daily News; the Oakland Tribune; the Sacramento Bee; and the New York Times.

-- 
Professor Rick Hasen
Loyola Law School
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