About the December 17th Charter Commission Meeting

At the December 17^th meeting it appears there was an error made when a vote was taken to pass Section 5.02 (d). The text this section reads:

5.02 (d).” The petition may consist of one (1) or more papers circulated separately and the signatures thereto may be upon the paper or papers containing the form of the petition, or upon other paper attached thereto. For a petition signature to be valid, a petition must contain, in addition to the signature: the signer's printed name, residence address, county of residence, date of signing, voter registration number or date of birth, and must comply with any other applicable requirements prescribed by state law. One (1) of the signers to each of such papers shall make oath before an officer competent to administer oaths that each signature is that of the person whose name it purports to be and was signed by such person on the date indicated. No signatures to a petition shall remain effective or be counted which were placed thereon more than (30) thirty days prior to the filing of such petition with the city secretary.”

 

After the jump, read more.

Election Code Title 16, Chapter 277, Section 277.02 states the following concerning the signature and other information required for a signature on a petition to be valid:

1)            Signature

2)            The signer’s printed name

3)            (a) Date of birth

or

(b) Voter registration number and for Richardson, the county of registration

4)            The signer’s address

5)            Date of signing

 

If a signer to a petition provides a date of birth, they need not provide a voter identification number or the county in which they reside.

A change as made to 5.02 (d) would also seem to be inconsistent with Section 277.004. In effect, 277.004 states any requirement for the validity or verification in addition to 277.004 are not effective unless they were already in use before September 1, 1985.

This charter commission seems most concerned about protecting the city administration and the city council members from the voters, rather than, protecting the voters from the city administration and the council members, some more than others.

A few years ago there were some funny comments about "There's them, there's us. Us and them." Here is a link to it and the audio of Dunn making the comments:

http://dc-tm.blogspot.com/2011/04/them-arenot-us-says-dunn-well-duh.html 

This protection of the city council by the charter commission seems more evident with the Dec. 17^th votes and conversations about Section 5 and 14 of the city charter.

 

Another apparent problem would state statute Section 277.002 (e).  This statutes state that signature to a petition are invalid after 180 days. If a signature becomes invalid after 180 days, then it would seem that a signature is “valid” for at least to 180 days.

A home rule city has the effective power legislature concerning how the city is run, and need only look to the legislature for limitations, according to the Texas Constitution Article 11, Section 5.

While it may be the charter commission's desire to offer as much protection as they can provide for council members, it would appear the protection they are attempting to provide the city council members, namely that a signature to a petition for recall is valid for only 30 days, would not be consistent with Section 277.002 (e) of the election code.

I would suggest they revisit Article 5 and revote on language that would comply with state statute. Here would be the language I would suggest:

“The petition may consist of one (1) or more papers circulated separately and the signatures thereto may be upon the paper or papers containing the form of the petition, or upon other paper attached thereto. For a petition signature to be valid, a petition must contain, in addition to the signature: the signer's printed name, residence address, county of residence, date of signing, voter registration number or date of birth, and must comply with any other applicable requirements prescribed by state law. For a petition signature to be valid, a petition must contain, in addition to the signature: the signer's printed name, residential address, date of signing, date of birth and must comply with any other applicable requirements prescribed by state law. If no date of birth is provided, the signer’s voter registration number and county of residence shall be provided. One (1) of the signers to each of such papers shall make oath before an officer competent to administer oaths that each signature is that of the person whose name it purports to be and was signed by such person on the date indicated. No signatures to a petition shall remain effective or be counted which were placed thereon more than (30) thirty (180) one hundred and eighty days prior to the filing of such petition with the city secretary.”

In another effort where the priority seems to be protection of the council, rather than protecting the voters, it was proposed to add Section 5.04, Recall limitations. Quite simply, this appears to be a solution in search of a problem. While this commission was supposed to make changes and suggestions to simply comply with state and federal laws, rather than make substantial changes to the charter, it clearly has the option to make substantial changes if it so desires. This appears to be a clearly substantial change.

After being in Richardson since 1959, I cannot recall any recall elections. Lacking any other reason for 5.04, I see no need for it, at all.