Tuesday, September 23, 2008
State appeals court rejects call for injunction on Stop Rail Now ballot question
by Larry Geller
The Star-Bulletin has a breaking news item, Court rejects Stop Rail Now's appeal, leads with this:
The state appeals court this afternoon rejected a request to place on the Nov. 4 general election ballot a question about whether the city should be banned from building a train or rail transit system.
But my reading of the opinion, which can be found here, is that the appeal is still pending. It’s the preliminary injunction that has been turned down. The court balanced the relative harm that would be done to the election process and decided that the City Council’s amendment, which would be on the ballot anyway, would do the trick. So no injunction, but the appeal can go forward.
On page 11 of the opinion we find this statement:
To be clear, this is not a decision on an expedited appeal from the orders(s) and judgment of the Circuit Court. The appeal from the Circuit Court has not been briefed. The deadline for a cross-appeal has not expired. The matter before this court is a motion for an injunction pending an appeal…
See also page 32, the conclusion, where it states that the request for a preliminary injunction is denied.
Since an appeal won’t be heard for some time, this may settle the issue anyway. The ballots will be printed by the time an appeal is heard. I guess the ball is now in Stop Rail Now’s court as to what they do now.
Update: An Advertiser breaking news story posted while I was writing this seems to have it right.
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