STOP Files Suit To Force Vote On Public Funds For Arena

Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork, or STOP, seeks to overturn a decision  by the City Clerk that rejected the group's petitions for a June ballot measure.

The clerk ruled each petition violated as many as four election laws.

Attorney Bradley Hertz  represents STOP and three other plaintiffs.  He says the failure to properly publish a notice of intent and the circulation of nine different, unapproved petitions should not keep the measure off the ballot.

"We had in a sense too many cooks in the kitchen," says Hertz, "with a lot of groups and individuals enthusiastic about creating their own version of the petition and circulating it and some words were deleted and added unfortunately throughout the process."

Hertz says a California Supreme Court ruling allows petitions if they substantially comply with election law.

In a statement, Sacramento City Attorney James Sanchez says, the City believes the petitions have "significant legal shortcomings" which will be "persuasive to a judge."

Hertz says people knew what they were signing, despite the flaws.

"We do have the Substantial Compliance Doctrine for the courts to determine whether it was close enough and whether you err on the side of the 22,000 signers and let the election go forward or you put form over substance and disenfranchise the signers."

Hertz says he will enter each of nine different, unapproved petitions as evidence.  

Opponents of the measure called for the plaintiffs to show who is funding their efforts.

STOP and the other plaintiffs say their attorneys are paid with money contributed by Sacramento County voters.

Arena Opponents Sue City Clerk