Today Judge Roslyn Silver issued an order. Click on image to view.
Set your calendar for Thursday, July 12, 1:30 pm at the U.S. District Court in Phoenix for an Evidentiary hearing in the matter of Orgeron v. Town of Quartzsite.
This is the unusual federal lawsuit, possibly one of first impression, where Mr. Orgeron won a recent election for Quartzsite Town Council, but the incumbents refuse to seat him and the new Mayor! (Even though the incumbent Mayor finally resigned last week.)
The incumbents are (illegally?) spending a lot of the voter’s money to stay in power, claiming Mr. Orgeron is not qualified for the seat because, they say, he hadn’t been a resident for a year. Mr. Orgeron is seeking a Restraining Order from the federal court, ordering the incumbents out and he and Mayor-elect-in-waiting Ed Foster in.
It should be an interesting hearing Thursday because the Quartzsite Town attorney, in an earlier legal filing for a similar state action (now in the Arizona court of appeals), has argued that the time to challenge the qualifications of a candidate is BEFORE an election. Not after. (As the Town is doing here.)
Room 604. Case number is 12-CV-01238-PHX-ROS on PACER.GOV. (Most of the filings can already be downloaded for free via the Recap extension for Firefox or from the Recap archive.)
englishgardengirl
July 6, 2012 at 10:19 am
I so want to be there to see Alex Taft and incumbents get what is coming to them and to see Orgeron, Foster and others get their rightful seats on council.
Chudluv
July 5, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Btw there is a video where she stated this…
Chudluv
July 5, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Mrs. Taft has stated at the last little getting together with their supporters masked as Town meeting; that they, council, knew he didn’t qualify BEFORE the election, and yet didn’t raise any objection then.