With at
least one candidate still arguing more people should be added to the ballot for
state school board seats, the clock appears to have run out.
U.S. District
Court Judge Clark Waddoups ruled two weeks ago that the state’s candidate
selection process was unconstitutional, and last week he ordered the names of
previously-rejected candidates Pat Rusk and Breck England be placed on the
ballot.
On
Wednesday, Waddoups added Utah County candidate Joel D. Wright, who had
petitioned the court.
Joylin
Lincoln, another Utah County candidate on the ballot, said Thursday that
everyone who had their names rejected for the Nov. 4 election should now be
included.
"If
the current process for candidate selection is unconstitutional, isn’t it
unconstitutional for all candidates," Lincoln, who is running to represent
District 9, said in a written statement.
But Mark
Thomas, elections director for the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office, said that
while state statute sets Friday as the deadline for ballots, the opportunity for
additional candidates had effectively passed on Thursday.
"I
think the time has expired," he said. "All of the counties have
locked down their ballots. Almost all of them, as far as I know, have printed
them. Some of them have put them in the mail and some of them will put them in
the mail tomorrow."
Wright,
an attorney, said he and the other plaintiffs might pursue continued litigation
if the Utah Legislature fails to reform the selection process next year. But he
has no plans to challenge the election results if he falls short in November,
he said.
"The
judge has ruled it’s unconstitutional and all the parties, me included,
basically agreed once we’re put on the ballot we’re not going to do anything
until the next legislative session," Wright said Thursday.
It would be
difficult for rejected candidates who did not make it onto the ballet to
challenge the outcome, he said. They would have to justify why they delayed
petitioning the court to be added, he explained. Originally
about 70 Utahns filed to run for seven seats on the Utah State Board of
Education, the 15-member board that oversees the state’s education system.
A
committee appointed by the governor narrowed the field to 37, interviewed them
and passed on three for each of the open seats. Gov. Gary Herbert picked 14 to
appear on the ballot. Waddoups declared that the process violates free speech
guarantees of the Constitution.
Waddoups
last week ordered England be placed on the ballot in Davis County and Rusk in
Salt Lake County. They had sued in federal court after they failed to make the
ballot.
Wright
had filed a motion on Tuesday asking that his name be placed on the ballot for
District 9 in Utah County, the same one in which Lincoln is running.
On
Thursday, Lincoln pointed to Wright’s addition, saying she is concerned
"that the new process for being placed on the ballot for state school
board through the judicial process appears to be a ‘mechanism where a certain
class of candidate is excluded from the election process,’" echoing the
language of Waddoups’ ruling on the constitutionality of the process.
Wright
was represented before Waddoups by members of his firm, Kirton McConkie.
Wright
said he agreed with Lincoln that everyone who was rejected should be on the
ballot, but he pointed out others too could have petitioned the court after
Waddoups’ rulings. Or, he said, the governor could have decided to place them
there.
"Basically
there is no clear solution," Wright said. "This is a mess."
Alan
Smith, one of the attorneys who filed the original lawsuit, declined comment on
Lincoln’s call for everyone to be on the ballot.
Wright
was one of the candidates approved by the committee but Herbert passed him over
for the ballot after an interview.
"I had a
very different viewpoint from him on several issues," Wright said after
the Wednesday hearing. "That’s the great thing about the judge’s ruling,
that you can’t exclude candidates based on their viewpoint under the
Constitution."
Joel Wright
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