D.C.
casino supporters try for appeal
In Washington, casino supporters fought to
get their proposal on the ballot Wednesday,
telling an appeals court that city election
officials improperly threw out thousands of
petition signatures.
Lawyer George Jones tried to argue the
District of Columbia Board of Elections and
Ethics was wrong to toss thousands of
signatures on the grounds that circulators
misrepresented the ballot initiative, and
wore T-shirts touting jobs and health care.
Jones told the D.C. Court of Appeals the
statements are considered political speech
and are protected by the First Amendment.
But he was repeatedly interrupted by
questions from the three-judge panel.
Judge Theodore Newman inquired as to how
many signatures officials removed because of
fraud and how many were tossed over
allegedly misleading statements.
Casino proponents submitted 56,000
signatures. It is noted that after the names were checked
against voter rolls, 21,279 signatures
remained.
Newman said the court should not be spending time
analyzing the constitutional issue if the
signatures thrown out for fraud put
proponents below the required 17,599 valid
signatures.
Jones promised those numbers and stated that
he did not challenge the signatures rejected
for fraud. That includes more than 6,200
omitted
after some circulators admitted forging
names from phone books.
It is said that the court is expected to rule
some time this month.
Supporters are hoping for a favorable
decision in time for voters to be able to decide in November on
their plan to put 3,500 video lottery
terminals in a casino to be built in a
rundown section of Northeast Washington.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams and several
members of the D.C. Council oppose the plan.
Judge Michael Farrell noted the possibility
of
returning the case to the DCBOEE for a
decision that disregards the issue of
petition gatherers' statements.
