[Vision2020] Term of Office

[Art Deco]

Election Debaters,

 

I stopped by the city library on the way from the post office.  

 

Donald Huskey cited the below as the applicable law.  

 

To see quickly if there was any case law on this particular statute, I checked the Annotated Idaho Code.  There was only one annotation and that did not deal with the issue which the city now faces.  No all cases may be referenced by the annotations.

 

Unless things have changed, anyone with a UI computer ID can go to the UI Law Library Site and make a careful and complete search with relative ease to see if there are any other cases dealing with IC 50-704.  They can then read, copy, and paste to Vision 2020 all applicable cases.  {Anyone can use the computers in the lobby of the law library for the same purpose.}

 

 

However, if the city wants to be squeaky clean and aboveboard on this issue, it should ask the district court for a Declaratory Judgment on an expedited basis.

 

 

Since I am not an attorney, my opinion is not likely to be very persuasive.  That said, maybe we should look carefully at the statute at issue.

 

50-704.  VACANCIES -- APPOINTMENT. A vacancy on the council shall be filled by appointment made by the mayor with the consent of the council, which appointee shall serve only until the next general city election, at which such vacancy shall be filled for the balance of the original term.

 

It may be helpful to break the statute down:

 

[A]  A vacancy on the council shall be filled by appointment made by the mayor with the consent of the council,

 

[B]  which appointee shall serve only until the next general city election,

 

[C]  at which such vacancy shall be filled for the balance of the original term.

 

There does not appear to be any controversy about [A].

 

[B] appears to be saying that the appointee serve only until the next general city election.  Perhaps a more exact way of reading this is:

 

shall serve only until the {date of the} next general city election,

 

This means, in my opinion, that once the election is held, the appointee's term of service has ended.  The use of the word "only" in the context of the statute and particularly in the context of phrase [B] seems determinative to me.

 

That being the case then [C] should be read as:

 

at which {date of the next general city election} such  the vacancy {for which the appointee was appointed} shall be filled for the balance of the original term {which is the interval between the date of the general election and the date elected officials are normally sworn in}.

 

If it was intended for the appointee to fill the entire remaining term of the position to which they were appointed until the seating of those elected in the next city general election, the language of the statute would read:

 

which appointee shall serve the remainder of the term of the councilperson whose departure created the vacancy; or if there is a general city election before the end of the vacator's term, shall serve until a new councilperson can be elected and seated in accordance with the other applicable statutes of this section.

 

Perhaps the legislative intent of this statute is to install in office as quickly as possible a person who clearly and directly represents the current will of the electorate, not one who serves, once removed by appointment rather than by election, according to the past will of the electorate.

 

 

My opinion could easily be wrong in this matter.  However, I urge the city to seek a Declaratory Judgment from the district court on an expedited basis.  Perhaps by Monday next, we could have an answer.

 


Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Harkins" <jeffh at moscow.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 11:09 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Term of Office


> Visionnaires:
> 
> It seems to me that elections are for "terms of office"
> 
> I suspect that the state law deals with two issues - filling the 
> remaining term of Hill (to January) and election of the replacement 
> for the new term - (which is seated in Jan),
> 
> A consistent interpretation  - leading to seating in January 
> seemingly consistent with the will of voters ....
> 
> Thus voters for Hill get their full term and voters against Ament 
> don't have to endure someone they didn't vote for more than his 
> elected term.  Seems rather straightforward to me.
> 
> _____________________________________________________
> List services made available by First Step Internet, 
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
>               http://www.fsr.net                       
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
> 
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20051114/4b03b01c/attachment-0001.htm