| Jan. 28, 2005
Taxpayers foot the bill for Rossi's election challenge By REBECCA COOK
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE (AP) _ Whoever wins the legal challenge to the governor's
election, the citizens of Washington will pay.
In fact, they're already paying.
The
state expects to spend about $200,000 of taxpayer money on private
lawyers defending the Secretary of State's office.
And
every county auditor and prosecutor is spending thousands of taxpayer
dollars in staff time to respond to the Republicans' lawsuit challenging
the 129-vote victory of Gov. Christine Gregoire. Some say the lawsuit is
bleeding resources from other areas of government.
Republicans, convinced the election was irredeemably tainted, say the
challenge is worth the cost.
"We
don't know who won, and we can't just sweep it under the table because
it's a bother," said Mary Lane, spokeswoman for Republican Dino Rossi,
who lost a hand recount to Gregoire after winning the first two counts.
"This is essential for our democracy, that we have a fair and clean
election."
Many
citizens agree, and believe a revote is the only fair solution - even if
it costs them.
Rossi
and the state Republican Party filed their election challenge in Chelan
County Superior Court, suing the state and all 39 counties. They allege
that hundreds of illegal ballots were counted and they're asking Judge
John E. Bridges to nullify the super-close governor's election. The
state Democratic Party intervened in the case, saying the GOP's
challenge is unconstitutional and their evidence is too weak to justify
throwing out election results.
The
next hearing is scheduled for Friday. The Democrats and five counties
will ask the judge to dismiss the case. In the meantime, many counties
are struggling to dig out from the blizzard of lawsuit paperwork. The
Republicans' discovery request includes 48 questions and demands for
evidence.
In
Island County, a mid-sized county of 75,000, county officials estimate
they've spent at least 162 hours of staff time - costing taxpayers about
$4,600 - responding to the GOP's discovery demands and preparing for
hearings.
That
doesn't count the time it took tech support workers to revive the
prosecutor's e-mail system after it crashed under the weight of all the
election challenge filings.
"It's
safe to say that the Rossi lawsuit is consuming a significant chunk of
our resources, even though we are, in comparison to other parties, a
minor player," said Island County Prosecuting Attorney Greg Banks, who
is also prosecuting two new murder cases.
Rossi
ran as a fiscal conservative, and his supporters say they hate to see
taxpayer dollars going down the drain for a lawsuit. But many say Rossi
is doing the right thing.
Lee
Benysek of Oak Harbor, a Navy veteran of Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War
and "everything in between," calls himself an independent and believes
Gregoire will be a fine governor. But he doesn't trust the results of
the hand recount.
"I'm
willing to pay my share," said Benysek, 59. "I really think they should
have another election just because of the baloney they've uncovered."
The
Secretary of State's office expects to spend about $90,000 this month on
outside lawyers, said Elections Director Nick Handy. Usually state
agencies are represented by the Attorney General's office when sued. But
when the Republicans filed their election challenge in December,
Gregoire was still attorney general, and her office had an obvious
conflict of interest. So the Secretary of State hired a team of four
top-notch Seattle lawyers who collectively bill $1,115 an hour.
By
the time Republican Rob McKenna was sworn in as the new attorney general
this month, Handy said, those attorneys had built up so much expertise
on the election challenge that the secretary of state decided to keep
them on the case.
Meanwhile county attorneys, who usually don't bill by the hour, are
squeezing in the election challenge around their other duties. Counties
small and large report difficulties with the cost of the election
challenge.
Pierce County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Dan Hamilton spent Thursday
morning trying to print out court filings from his e-mail, and had only
a ream of paper printed with gray X's to show for it.
Hamilton and another attorney have spent the past two weeks working
almost exclusively on the election challenge.
"It's
a major monkey wrench in the machinery of Pierce County," Hamilton said.
"A lot of the county's business is not being done because of just trying
to manage this."
County officials are dealing not only with the lawsuit, but with dozens
of election-related public records requests from the media, lawmakers
and others.
In a
county that voted 58 percent for Rossi, Ferry County Prosecuting
Attorney James von Sauer said he understands why the Republicans
challenged the election.
But
von Sauer said it seems the Republicans are trying to paper their
opponents to death. In one of the poorest counties in the state, Von
Sauer said he will probably spend at least 60 hours - nearly eight full
days - responding to the GOP's discovery demands and preparing for the
next hearing.
"Had
they sat down and really thought what is necessary, they probably would
have tailored this thing down to a manageable level," von Sauer said.
Republicans say they are trying to work with the counties to make the
election challenge demands more manageable. Some counties have entered
agreements with the GOP attorneys allowing them to truncate their
discovery.
The
election challenge will eventually be decided by the state Supreme
Court. Whatever happens, counties don't have much hope of getting their
money back.
Judges can order the losers in a court case to pay the winner's costs.
But because most county prosecutors don't bill by the hour as private
attorneys do, there's no way to document exactly how much time they
spent on the case - especially on such things as rebooting their
computer because legal documents crashed their e-mail for the third
time.
Pursuing payback in court would take more effort than it's worth, Pierce
County's Hamilton said.
"There's not much you can do about it," he said. "The county is always
on the losing end of things."
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