In an effort spear-headed by the Libertarian Party of California (LPCA), LP Fresno County has filed arguments against eight ballot tax or bond measures for the upcoming general election. All of the arguments will be printed in the voter guide mailed out by the Fresno County Clerk. But, we learned on Tuesday that another argument against Measure C was filed by a coalition, “No on Measure C Committee.”
FresnoLand covered the Measure C ballot argument controversy, and quoted extensively from LPFC Chair, Kat McElroy:
After Kathryn McElroy party found out that the No-on-C coalition would not have their ballot argument appear this fall because the Libertarian party’s stock argument had taken precedence, she said Kus’ selection process was off.
“Our purpose in submitting arguments against all the ballot measures like we did was to make sure there was an argument against every measure,” McElroy said.
“In all of the other cases [except for Measure C], there were no other arguments submitted against, so it was really important to us to make sure that there’s actually a debate going on for the voters to make their decisions.”
On Wednesday morning, the Libertarians asked Kus if they could withdraw their ballot argument, presumably to make way for the No-on-C coalition’s argument, but Kus declined, citing another election code.
“We’re on the same side as them (the coalition). They had a strong argument that they submitted,” said Kathryn McElroy, a member of the Fresno county Libertarian party.
“We weren’t looking to preempt anybody. We just wanted to make sure there was at least one argument against [Measure C].”
FresnoLand September 1, 2022
The exact question that we sent to Fresno County Clerk, James Kus, was: “
Would it be too late to withdraw our argument on this measure, and if we were to do so, would the other argument received be published?
If it is possible, we are not asking to withdraw at the time, but would need to consider our course of action based on the answer to this question.
E-mail correspondence from Kat McElroy to James Kus, August 31, 2022
As expected, the Mr. Kus stated that this was not possible after the deadline had passed:
Having had some time to review this concept last night, we believe that California Election Code section 9601 would apply (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=ELEC§ionNum=9601). Arguments may be withdrawn up to the filing deadline.
If an argument was withdrawn properly, any other argument that had been properly filed would be a printed.
E-mail correspondence from James Kus to Kat McElroy, August 31, 2022
In the end, the No on Measure C Committee was invited to join LPFC in submitting the rebuttal to the argument for the measure in the voter guide. They have also told LPFC that they plan to file a petition, calling into question the selection process the Fresno County Clerk used. LPFC would like to see the “First Come, First Serve” selection process definitively shot-down in favor of a truly random selection of all eligible arguments. We do not believe, however, that selection should ever be based on the content or “merit” of the arguments, because that puts speech regulation into government control.