A Judge has ruled that the ballot will stand as is for the Virginia primary with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney as the only candidates in the presidential primary.
In a 22 page ruling the Judge basically said that the Plaintiff’s: Perry,Gingrich,Santorum,Huntsman waited too long to file their request for an injunction.
The Judge said: “In essense, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair,” Judge Gibney pulled no punches here: “They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions. The plaintiffs could have challenged the Virginia law at that time. Instead, they waited until after the time to gather petitions had ended and they had lost the political battle to be on the ballot; then on the eve of the printing of absentee ballots, they decided to challenge Virginia’s laws….The traditional purpose of a preliminary injunction is to prohibit an action. Preliminary injunctions are meant to protect the status quo…In this case, the plaintiffs request that the Court require the Board to add their names to the primary ballot, which is a positive act that alters the status quo.”
In essence the judged looked at the LAW, and ruled on the LAW, and didn’t practice activism. Fantastic. If people do not like the ruling they need to change the LAW in Virginia!
Text of the ruling:
This matter is before the Court on the plaintiff and intervenor-plaintiffs’ (collectively, the “plaintiffs”) motion for a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs are candidates seeking the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Under Virginia law, they failed to obtain the required number of petition signatures to place their names on the ballot for the Republican primary election. Now,they ask the Court for a preliminary injunction ordering that they be listed on the ballot. The plaintiffs argue that Virginia’s rules limiting who can circulate candidate petitions and requiring 10,000 signatures violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The equitable doctrine of laches bars the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as…Read The Rest
Unfortunately the PDF scan does not recognize character selection and so to read it you’ll have to click the link above.
