[statecom] From Merelice Re: Legal Opinion

[Merelice]

On 5/25/08, Daniel Melnechuk <isis at isisdesign.com> wrote:

> Dear Statecom Reps and Adcom Members,
>
>  Please review the legal opinion (PDF) just obtained from an election lawyer
> about commonwealth law, our delegate selection plan, and communications with
> Michelle Tassinari regarding same. I am not going to extract any from the
> opinion since the entirety is important to read.
>

Greetings,

I trust there is no expectation this will be resolved at tomorrow's
Adcom meeting and that we will attend to other timely business. (Hmmm.
Is this the real reason you wanted to delay the AdCom meeting?) The
process, the timing, and the opinion itself raise too many questions
to be resolved.

My initial take leads to the following questions:

In providing Mr. Rom background material, why did Grace and Dan not
include the votes of CDLC and, especially, the State Committee?  Is
Mr. Rom aware that AdCom is supposed to carry out the policies of
StateCom? And why did Dan and Grace not include the GRP election
newsletter which notified GRP voters that two candidates had withdrawn
and one candidate was draft? Without that detail, how could Mr. Rom be
aware that voters knew what they were doing and, in some cases, were
likely casting protest votes that they wanted to have honored?

Why does Mr. Rom refer to the questions submitted to Ms. Tassinari as
coming from the co-chairs? While I sent the letter, it was at AdCom's
request, after having the letter reviewed by AdCom and after modifying
it to reflect AdCom's input. Why did Grace and Dan not do the same if
they believe they were acting on behalf of the party?

Regarding Mr. Rom's answer to question one:
He needs to be asked on what basis he feels he can directly contradict
the opinion provided by Ms. Tassinari.

Also, most of his rationale relates to before candidates are actually
placed on the ballot. His answer also implies that the candidates were
placed on the GRP ballot when they did not wish it to be so. In this
case, the candidates were aware they were being placed on the ballot
and knew the deadline for requesting that their names be removed. They
chose not to do so. How would he modify his answer in response to
these facts?

It appears that he actually did not answer question two, and I would
still be interested in an answer. The question relates to releasing
delegates, whereas he continues to address allocating or misallocating
the delegates. Again, his answer assumes the candidates withdrew
before their names were on the ballot ("…a candidates who withdraws
from a party primary could not win delegates in that party's
election").

He also says that the Commonwealth would have a grievance if a
non-candidate benefited from Mass. election laws. In fact, the
Commonwealth was well aware that three candidates on the primary
ballot were no longer candidates, and still gave the opinion that said
candidates should be allocated delegates earned in the primary
election. I wish he had answered the question about releasing their
delegates. Or had been asked about making their acceptance of
delegates conditional on their seeking the nomination – which was the
question that Tassinari said her office could not give an opinion on.

And, of course, all this could and should have been asked many weeks
ago and not by two people acting as party renegades, without any
warning.

Whatever can be said about my sending letters to the candidates before
getting full AdCom approval, nothing I have done was without advance
notice and an effort to collaborate with and get input.

Merelice