ELECTION NULLIFICATION in California Congressional Election

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By Paul Lehto (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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The judge is set to give his decision on this argument Friday. Court hearing on this matter begins at 1:30 p.m. Pacific time. Additional coverage at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1980238

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It thus appears now based on the signed pleadings of the defendants in the California 50th District Election contest in San Diego (the Busby/Bilbray race) that the US media overlooked one of the great political stories of the year: A power grab by the Speaker of the House seven days after the June 6 election to terminate any further election or action in San Diego County except those actions that they choose not to attack the jurisdiction of.

This power grab and premature election termination was accomplished by swearing in Brian Bilbray on June 13, only seven days after the election and weeks before the election was certified and before all votes were counted, and then subsequently arguing that nobody else (and especially the San Diego Superior Court) has any power or jurisdiction to do anything about it, based on the allegedly exclusive power of the House to judge the Qualifications of their Members under Art. I, sec. 5 of the US Constitution.

The power grab became clear only a couple days ago, when the jurisdictional argument above was filed and made perfectly clear the mental state and specific intent of the defendants when Bilbray was shuttled to DC to be sworn in seven days after the election. The swift swearing took place at least 16 days prior to the certification of the election on or about June 29. But, if this swift swearing is to be given effect as the Defendant Brian Bilbray and Registrar Haas argue, then the "exclusive jurisdiction" of the House of Representatives also deprived Registrar of Voters Haas of any jurisdiction to certify results in the first place! The election was thus never legally finalized or certified, it legally "never happened."

Thus, we have an incomplete invalid election. The parties to the election contest now all agree, they just get there in different ways. The motion to dismiss / argument against jurisdiction of the defendants reveals the powerplay that occurred on June 13th, with the premature swearing in.

Shades of 2000, with a selection decided in Washington DC, and the pitiful States and their citizens ordered to pipe down and "get used to it"?

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Paul Lehto practiced law in Washington State for 12 years in business law and consumer fraud, including most recently several years in election law, and is now a clean elections advocate. His forthcoming book is tentatively titled DEFENDING (more...)

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