Madison County residents Billy Redd, David Buchanan, Steve Leslie, and others filed an emergency petition for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court Friday afternoon against Madison County Circuit Clerk Lee Westbrook and the Madison County Board of Supervisors.
The group filed suit after Board Attorney Eric Hamer announced the county would use the redistricting plan adopted by the Board after the qualifying deadline. The Board's action had the effect of placing several opponents of the incumbents in other districts. The court recently dismissed a lawsuit by Madison County seeking permission to extend the qualifying deadline to June 1 after it determined the county had no standing to sue.
The suit alleges due process and equal protection violations of the Fourteenth Amendment. Russ Latino represents the plaintiffs. The combined complaint argues "it is fundamentally unfair for any board of supervisors to wait until after qualifying to redistrict. Such conduct presents fertile ground for corruption in a multitude of ways, including the potential to draw opponents of incumbents out of districts and rig elections."
Indeed such was the result of the new plan. Billy Redd was a candidate in District 2 but was moved into District 3 against an incumbent and a sitting Ridgeland alderman from a district that had no incumbent. David Buchanan went from challenging Karl Banks (4) to challenging Paul Griffin (5). Steve Leslie states if he had known he would be moved out of District 3, he would have run for supervisor as he did not want to challenge Mr. Smith.
Earlier post with maps.
Collection of all Madison County posts.
13 comments:
If there is a State election cycle not being followed, should not be a State legal matter; not federal?
The key words here are 'rig elections" - that is what Johnson, Griffin, Banks and Crosby are doing exactly. They knew that Redd was a good candidate in 2, so why not throw him in 3 to challenge D.I. and split the vote so that their guy, Gerald Stein can win. Why? Because Gerald is a good ole boy and will obey accordingly when his string is pulled.
If any supervisor running in Madison County approaches you for their vote, ask them if they've received money from "the dishonest 4" Supervisors or Rudy Warnick or Eric Hammer...then you know not to vote for that candidate!
The Madison County Board of Supervisors cannot control or decide what candidates run in elections. The 14th Amendment prohibits state governments from denying persons within their jurisdiction the privileges or immunities of U.S. citizenship, and guarantees to every such person due process and equal protection of the laws.
This is one of those situations where different judicial and AG opinions appear to be contradicting one another. One says it's too late to have the elections under the new lines, the other says that the election must be run under the most recent precleared lines, but doesn't say one way or the other whether the lines need to be precleared by the filing deadline. This is bad. If the supervisors are allowed to do this then the system is essentially telling all 82 boards in Mississippi that if you draw a tough opponent, just redistrict and put them in someone else's district. There's no restriction on how many times you can redistrict - do it every election if you need to. When Judge Guirola said that he hoped that the Madison County supervisors would do the right thing that obviously proved that he didn't know the Madison County supervisors. Bill Billingsley
How did such people ever get elected in the crime free environs of Madison County?
How is Eric Hammer - the lawyer hired by the Supervisor for the county of Madison - allowed to give donations to these supervisors races? He gave $400 to Paul Griffin and over $1500 to Karl Banks. How is that allowed? Does anyone know?
Quote from WSJ that is applicable:
This is what happens when the majority of the population just doesn't pay attention and votes on some stupid hopey, dopey, changey jingle.
Blame not the prince of fools, rather blame the fools that made the man their prince.
I would assume that what Eric Hamer is doing is nothing different from what the lawyers who donate to Jim Hood in exchange for lucrative contingency fee agreements are doing.
Why do you think large donations are made to polical campains? Yes it is legal and bad wrong.
I want to know who gave Lee Westbrook permission to go ahead and start working on changing the Supervisor districts? Anyone?
That's a good question. Lee is an elected official who should be acting on her own, but let's say that she takes direction from the BOS. Who on the board is authorized to give her direction on this? The president? Any member? To give her this direction without formally adopting the lines may be cause to challenge the election results. If formal approval was given last week after the DOJ preclearance came in, then it was done outside the public meeting, which violates the open meeting law. Someone messed up one way or the other. Bill Billingsley
Eric Hamer is a a slimy piece of shit, and a stooge for the white trash POS who gave him the gig, Tim Johnnson.
Eric Hamer was a DUI defense lawyer and did plaintiff's work before being hired by this board 4 years ago. Totally unqualified for the position.
True story: I was on the MCEDA board for a couple years. When we were looking to hire a new attorney, he submitted a resume and came in for an interview.
I looked at his CV and said, "Are you a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you put that on your resume' with the other associations you listed?"
(his entire bald head turning red)"I didn't think it was important."
"Are you a member of the Mississippi Association of Trial Lawyers?"
(redder still) "Yes."
"Why didn't you put that on your CV, either? Didn't think that was important?"
"No."
"Would you consider those two organizations to be pro-business?"
(I swear) "I don't really have an opinion."
Needless to say, he didn't get that gig.
Post script: about a month later he came in Buffalo Wild Wings and sat and glared at me for 10 minutes, like he was gonna jump ugly or something. I asked him if he was trying to get my attention, or if he wanted to discuss anything. He quit staring at me.
Freaking 150-pound bald headed stooge.
Thanks, Kevin, for the laugh on an otherwise not so funny day. It would be funny even if it weren't true. Bill
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