Mayor Ron Littlefield’s chances of defeating a recall effort mounted by a small fraction of city voters have always been good. A range of legal issues clearly seem to disqualify the recall initiative. There are too many apparent legal flaws in the petitions themselves; the number of legally verifiable voter signatures on them is hugely inadequate; and the city’s vague recall code does not legally comply with established state laws governing recalls.
The question at the moment, however, is whether the mayor will have his day in court to argue the legal merits of his challenge to the recall, or whether partisan politics and a legal travesty will let the recall effort by a handful of tea party-style opponents go forward.
Local partisan politics on the Hamilton County Election Commission appears to be against the mayor. The controlling Republicans on the five-member panel wrongly and blatantly ignored the flaws in the recall petitions, compelling Littlefield to take his case to Circuit Court. There, Judge Jeff Hollingsworth strongly affirmed his view that the recall effort failed on multiple legal points.
A wrong-headed commission
Recallers challenged that ruling, and an appeals court divined a procedural point — one which neither side had argued — on which to vacate it. Then the Election Commission’s Republicans struck again in their favor, ignoring legal standards governing appeals and prematurely fixing a date for a recall election next August before Littlefield’s pending appeal of the strange appeals court decision was heard. The commission’s schedule now calls for the Election Commission to begin issuing qualifying petitions to potential candidates on Jan. 6, just four weeks away.