[gpga-news] PrsRls: Georgia Greens Denounce Appeals Decision in Cartwright

[Hugh Esco]

For the printer ready version of this press release:
http://www.greens.org/georgia/pdf/prs-rls/2002/PrsRls-20020907_Cartwright_Affirm11CA.pdf 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 7th, 2002

For further information, please contact:
	Kerrie Dickson 706-896-9966, <foxfire@greens.org>
	Hugh Esco 706-896-6941, <hesco@greens.org>
	Joyce Griggs 912-964-1115
	Al Herman 404-228-1561, <cinerguy@mindspring.com>

Georgia Green Candidates Denounce Appeals Decision in Cartwright
Prepare for 10/25 State Court Challenge to Georgia Ballot Access Regime

The Federal Court of Appeals in the 11th Circuit, on Thursday issued an 
opinion affirming the Northern District Court's dismissal of Cartwright v 
Barnes.  In this challenge to Georgia's 5% ballot access petitioning 
requirement, Libertarian candidates claimed that the petitioning 
requirement constitutes an additional "Qualification" for Congressional 
office, prohibited by the Federal Constitution.

"The District Court's dismissal preempted any opportunity for an 
evidentiary hearing on the insurmountable barriers imposed by the so-called 
Democrat majority in the Georgia Assembly which enacted this 5% standard in 
1943 to keep Republicans and Communists off of Georgia's ballot," said Hugh 
Esco, Green Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, chair of the 
Voter Choice Coalition and a co-plaintiff in another ballot access 
challenge pending in State Court.  The Green Party has fielded two 
candidates for Congress in 2002, Joyce Griggs in the First and Al Herman in 
the Seventh.  "Now the Eleventh Circuit has said that they have no need to 
review the facts either."

In a Per Curiam decision by Circuit Judges Hull, Fay and Gibson (of the 
Eighth Circuit), the Federal Appeals Court rejected in a footnote, as 
frivolous, plaintiff's claim that the 5% requirement is analogous to those 
struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court just two years ago in a Missouri 
case, Cooke v Gralicke.  They likened the 5% requirement to an election 
"procedure", permissible under the "time, manner and place" clause 
permitting the States to regulate the election procedures, but not the 
qualifications, for Federal officials.

"Joyce Griggs was on the ballot in 2000, when she was still with the 
Democrats, yet when she made the switch to the Green Party, she was denied 
any meaningful  opportunity to offer herself as a ballot qualified 
candidate in 2002," said Esco.  "If that is not evidence of the petitioning 
regime constituting an additional Qualification, targeting a 'class of 
potential candidates', then I don't know what is."

The Eleventh Circuit's Opinion leaned heavily on a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court 
decision in Storer v Brown, which had remanded that case back to the 
California Courts for a hearing of the evidence, without heeding their 
caution that, " . . . it will be one thing if independent candidates have 
qualified with some regularity and quite a different matter if they have 
not."  No independent Congressional candidate has ever qualified for the 
Georgia ballot under the 5% rule since it was imposed in 1943.  Walker 
Chandler, attorney for the Libertarian plaintiffs has said he intends to 
request an en banc review of Thursday's Opinion.

Meanwhile, in Fulton Superior Court, Judge Constance Russell has reset a 
previously postponed hearing on a Motion for Summary Judgement in an 
unrelated challenge by the Green Party to the 5% rule.  Dickson v Secretary 
of State had originally been scheduled for an August 22nd hearing, but was 
postponed in the last week before that hearing and has now been reset to 
October 25th, at 3:00 pm, in Courtroom 5-B.

Ms. Dickson and her campaign volunteers were threatened with arrest over a 
dozen times while circulating petitions in public parks while working to 
put her on the 2000 ballot for a State Assembly race in North 
Georgia.  During the 2002 ballot access drive, another Green Party 
petitioner was arrested in Rome on July Fourth for activities theoretically 
protected by the First Amendment.

"My case just goes to demonstrate," said Ms. Dickson, who is running this 
year as the Green Party nominee for Commissioner of Agriculture, "what 
judges reading pleadings in chambers can not know without a full 
presentation of the facts in an adversarial setting, with an opportunity to 
cross-examine the clueless perspectives presented by the State's attorneys 
who have never carried a clipboard to get their candidates on the ballot."

- - - 30 - - -

Opinion of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 02-10670, in
Cartwright, Holder, et al v. Roy Barnes and Cathy Cox
http://www.greens.org/georgia/litigation/Cartwright_v_Barnes_02-10670.pdf

For further background, including the complete pleadings in
Dickson and Esco v Secretary of State of Georgia et al, link to:
http://www.greens.org/georgia/2k/litigation/