The Arrogance of Jay Imperial

What kind of a crazy world do we live in that any judge would even for a second believe that canceling an election somehow protects the voting rights of Rosemead citizens? 4,200 confirmed, registered voters in Rosemead signed the petitions to ask for a recall election of Jay Imperial and Gary Taylor. State law does not give a city council the discretion to decide whether or not to hold an election once a sufficient number of signatures have been verified. Yet Gary Taylor voted against scheduling this election three times, and Jay Imperial voted against scheduling the election twice. And now he has filed a desperate, frivolous lawsuit, filled with innuendo and lacking important factual details. So he's gotten a judge to schedule a hearing, on January 16th, to determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed with this suit. My money would be that, once the judge hears what kind of games these guys are playing, he'll issue a summary judgement ruling, toss out the suit, and scold Mr. Imperial and his attorney for wasting the court's time. Unfortunately, this act of desperation by a power-corrupted individual may succeed in postponing his eventual removal from office. The February 7th election date is definitely in jeopardy. But until a judge actually rules that the election is off, we need to keep preparing as though Februay 7th is election day. By the way, Mr. Imperial claims to be paying for this attorney. But is the money coming out of his own pocket, or out of his campaign fund? And is this attorney charging "market rates"? If not, and if no one else is making up the difference, then Mr. Imperial will need to declare the difference as an "in-kind" contribution to his reelection campaign. I'm sure Mr. Taylor will stay hot on this story, to make sure that all the proper campaign forms are filed on time. Speaking of which, Wal-Mart's campaign spending declarations for the period ending December 31st have still not been filed. Of course, their forms for the March municipal election last March were not filed until August 1st. Nothing illegal about that. But if Mr. Taylor seemed so appalled at certain other political entities filing their campaign spending reports on the last day they were due. Why doesn't he hold Wal-Mart to that same standard? [revised 1/7/06]