California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sued Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whom he recently appointed to his administration, to include his party preference on the ballot in the recall election expected later this year.
Newsom argues the omission was a “good faith mistake” on the part of his elections attorney and that the paperwork for the election was filed on time but did not include his party preference, the suit says.
Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) accused Newsom of asking the Secretary of State “to simply ignore the law” regarding the deadline for providing party preference information.
“She refused to do it, so now he’s taking her to court to try to get a judge to let him put that on the ballot, even though the law says it’s too late,” Kiley told The Epoch Times.
He called the fiasco a “banana republic way of doing things.”
“The election actually should have happened already. That’s what the recall rule said until few years ago, when it was changed to make the election process take longer because that’s what was viewed as advantageous to them the last time they faced a recall,” Kiley said.
But now the Democrats feel that “maybe having it in September, as opposed to November, is going to help Newsom win,” he said.
“It’s just sort of the textbook definition of corruption. They’re changing the rules in the middle of the game. In fact, the governor himself is the one who signed this bill in order to basically allow him to choose the date for his own recall election,” Kiley said.
“That’s not the way it’s supposed to work in democratic societies where you have free and fair elections.”
Kiley said the recall is “not a matter of partisanship.”
“This recall is about rejecting Gavin Newsom, because of the corrupt way he’s led our state and the harm is done to so many people in California,” he said.
Weber stated last week the recall will proceed to ballot but has not yet certified the recall election, and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis has not yet scheduled the date.
Neither Newsom’s office nor his campaign manager immediately responded to inquiries. The Secretary of State’s Office also did not respond immediately to inquiries. However, KRCA 3 reported it received an email stating, Weber responded via email, stating, “The Secretary of State’s office has a ministerial duty to accept timely filed documents. Acceptance of filings beyond a deadline requires judicial resolution.”
Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Orange County, issued a statement June 29, accusing the Democrats of changing the rules of the recall election to rush the election date giving Republicans less time to campaign against him.
“They just changed the election law to eliminate the 30-day financial review period required before the election is called. They changed the rules in the middle of a campaign. Again,” the statement said.
“The 30 day financial review period is the same rule they just put in place in 2018 to stop the Recall of Senator Josh Newman here in Orange County. The Democrats cannot be trusted with the power of their supermajority in Sacramento.”
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