The Dallas County Democratic party has retained Randy Johnston and Chad Baruch of Johnston Tobey Baruch to defend it in the lawsuit the GOP filed against it seeking the removal of 128 Democratic candidates off the March 6 primary ballot.
The lawyers made their debut into the case Wednesday evening, submitting filings requesting the presiding judge, Eric Moyé, to dismiss the GOP’s lawsuit and to award the Democratic party its attorneys’ fees since the “entire lawsuit is frivolous for multiple reasons.” The new filings also ask Judge Moyé to abate the case “until a proper party plaintiff has joined and properly served every one of those affected parties.”
The Dallas County Republican Party and its party chair, Missy Shorey, filed their lawsuit against their local political opponent party and its county chair, Carol Donovan, last Friday, alleging Donovan failed to sign 128 Democratic candidates’ ballot applications before submitting them to the secretary of state’s office as required by state law.
Instead, the Republicans and Shorey allege, the applications “bear someone else’s forgery of Donovan’s name,” thus violating the Texas Election Code.
The lawsuit, which was filed by Plano attorney Elizabeth D. Alvarez, asks for the court to issue a TRO, injunction and declaratory judgment that rules the 128 candidates are not eligible to be on the ballot for the primary in March as well as the general election in November.
“The injunctive relief sought herein is necessary to adequately protect the interests of the plaintiffs, and the voting public, from election fraud, misconduct and manipulation of the election process,” the lawsuit says.
Johnston said he was confident the lawsuit will not be successful and views it as an attempt to “generate negative press” and as an excuse to say things “you can’t say without getting sued for libel or slander” unless they’re spoken in the courthouse.
“The law is clear that a political party does not have standing to challenge the credentials of a candidate in a lawsuit,” Johnston told The Texas Lawbook Wednesday evening while putting the final touches on his filings. “I’m surprised the GOP’s lawyers would put their name on a pleading in something that’s not going to last as long as a piece of ice on a sidewalk in Dallas in August.
“I will be more than proud to frame a photocopy of the Republican party’s check paying the attorneys’ fees for this litigation,” he added.
Of the 128 candidates the GOP claims are ineligible to be on the ballot, 73, or 57 percent, of them are judges.
Johnston said when the Democratic party approached his firm Tuesday about representing it in the lawsuit, he was “honored” to take it because “I am tired of attempts to politicalize the third branch of government.
“These are good people trying to be judges… and I’m sick of the Republican party’s attempt to cram politics through the back door of the courthouse,” he said. “My personal belief is [the lawsuit is] a violation of the Voters Rights Act and Texas Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote because it’s clearly aimed at depriving minorities the right to vote for the candidates of their choice. The overwhelming majority of the candidates are minorities and women.
“They can’t beat them (the Democrats) at the ballot box, so they try to generate this negative press as if somehow they weren’t qualified, and it’s utter nonsense,” Johnston added.
In their filings, Johnston and Baruch argue the lawsuit should be dismissed because the Dallas Court of Appeals ruled in similar cases this week that the issue is moot since some absentee ballots, which list all 151 Democratic candidates, have already been sent out to military and overseas voters. Those cases involved Dallas County Prosecutor Raquel Jones, who is running for state district judge against Democratic incumbent Teresa Hawthorne in the primary; Dallas District Judge Staci Williams, who is being challenged by Republican attorney Mike Lee in the general election; and criminal defense lawyer Anthony Eiland, who is running for a justice of the peace spot against fellow Democrat and real estate broker Margaret O’Brien.
Plus, “not one of the statutes cited by the GOP in its petition requires any signature by a county chair to certify candidates for the primary ballot,” the Democrats’ court documents say. “And not one of those statutes prohibits a county chair from delegating any responsibility for a signature even if one existed.”
Johnston said the fact that the executive director signed the 128 applications instead of Donovan under Donvan’s permission “does not invalidate the candidates.”
The Republicans paint a different picture in their lawsuit. They say the Election Code “designates the county chair, alone, as the sole person responsible for certifying and the sole person authorized to submit the names of complying candidates to the Secretary of State” and that “this authority may not be delegated except in very limited circumstances,” a requirement the GOP argues the Democrats did not meet.