Lawsuit: Make Scott County supervisors follow the law

And Nikki Haley has a John Kerry problem.

Scott County Administrative Center (Photo: Ed Tibbetts)

The Scott County Board of Supervisors is being called to task over the refusal of a majority on the board to accept the report of a 3-person recount board in a closely contested Pleasant Valley School Board race.

Recall, a few weeks ago I wrote about this. The supervisors complained the recount board reviewing the District 6 contest between Tracey Rivera and Jameson Smith violated state law in tallying up the votes.

The recount board called the race a tie. Election Day results said Smith won by six votes.

The supervisors were outraged at what they described as the recount board’s illegal actions. So, in response, a majority on the county board chose to act illegally themselves by refusing to accept its findings.

I’ve been waiting to see whether Rivera, who had asked for the recount, would appeal the supervisors’ decision. And last week, through her attorney, she filed a petition asking the Scott County district court to compel the county board to “follow the law and accept the recanvas results as reported by the recount board …”

The request is pending.

Board Chair Ken Beck, along with Supervisor Rita Rawson, voted to accept the recount board’s report. Supervisors Jean Dickson, John Maxwell and Ross Paustian voted to reject it. All of the supervisors are listed as defendants in Rivera’s petition.

The majority’s decision to reject the recount board’s findings was startling. The law makes clear the board has only a ministerial role in this matter; that as stated in Iowa Code 50.48(5), if the recount board finds errors in the original tally, then “the county board shall reconvene within three days after being so notified, and shall correct its previous findings.”

The county attorney’s office explained this, but the majority rejected the recount board’s report, anyway.

Rivera’s petition calls special attention to the words “shall” in the previous passage, adding, “There is no compelling reason to reject the recount board because the Board was awarded no discretion in the legal authority mandated to it.”

As of Thursday afternoon, I had seen no response to Rivera’s petition.

The board is scheduled to meet next week, so this could come up for discussion then.

There is a legal process to review a recount board’s actions and it appeared we were headed in that direction before the three supervisors intervened.

As I explained in my previous article on this matter, allegations have been raised that the recount board improperly counted some ballots. At the same time, at least one member of the panel, a retired judge, has said the state administrative code appears to have conflicting passages that come into play here.

I make no judgment on these questions. I am more focused on the decision of our elected leaders. Even some supervisors seemed to acknowledge they had no discretion, but they voted against accepting the report, anyway.

Two of the supervisors then suggested Rivera drop the whole thing. That would put Smith into office. (If the race is declared a tie, the law says a drawing would declare the winner.)

I should note there are partisan overtones to this dispute. Smith’s attorney is a prominent conservative lawyer, while Rivera’s attorney has represented Democrats in election disputes.

School board races are officially non-partisan, but as we’ve seen in Iowa, these contests are becoming more polarized and partisan.

The majority on the board who voted to reject the recount board report are all Republicans. The two who voted to accept it are Republicans, too.

Close races tend to produce controversy and doubts. Sometimes, this is unavoidable. But the people truly lose confidence in our system when elected leaders choose to reject the law and take matters into their own hands.

It’s important to resolve this question soon. And not just for the sake of the people in Pleasant Valley’s 6^th District, but for all of the people who live in Scott County. They deserve to have confidence that their elected leaders know and understand their role in the administration of our elections, especially as we head into 2024.

Nikki Haley’s John Kerry problem

Nikki Haley’s gaffe this week over what started the Civil War has the potential to do some damage to her campaign at just the wrong time — just a few weeks before Iowans begin voting on Jan. 15.

By now, you’ve probably heard that when Haley was asked in New Hampshire the other day what started the Civil War, she failed to even mention slavery.

In response to a question about what started the war, Haley started off saying, “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do.”

After her answer, when the amazed questioner pointed out she omitted slavery, Haley’s said, “What do you want me to say about slavery?”

Haley has tried to back pedal ever since, acknowledging slavery’s role, but the damage is done. And it’s damaging precisely because her answer to the causes of a 160-year-old war, crystallizes what a lot of people, including some Republicans, already perceive about her: That Haley tries to be all things to all people; and, despite her campaign promises to tell the hard truths, she’s unable or unwilling to tell it to people straight if she thinks there’s a risk she’ll offend the Republican base.

Rival Chris Christie leveled this basic criticism, and he’s right.

This episode is similar to what hurt John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election against George W. Bush.

When Kerry told a voter he’d voted for Iraq war funding before he voted against it, his words fed into the perception among some voters that he was a flip-flopper.

It also didn’t help that the Bush campaign hammered Kerry with the line in TV ads for weeks on end.

It is possible the damage to Haley will be limited. After all, this happened during a week when many Americans are observing the holidays and may not be as focused on the news.

However, as my colleague Dave Busiek pointed out in a different context this week, the news cycle today runs differently than it did in the “old days.” Social media and the ever-present smartphone make the news easy to access — hard to avoid, actually — even when we try to be more focused on other things. (There also wasn’t a lot of other campaign-related news this week.)

Haley may be able to limit the damage by complaining about the media coverage and, as she’s already done, claiming the Civil War questioner was a Democrat.

Still, as Christie pointed out, this controversy feeds into a basic Haley weakness. It also forces her to spend precious campaign time telling people why she failed to tell a basic truth — even as she claims to be the candidate who tells the hard truths.

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