Fifteen years ago, Jay Nixon offered a unique view on the legal concept of quo warranto.
Nixon, a former two-term governor of Missouri, was the attorney general then. He was locked in a dispute with the administration of Gov. Matt Blunt over what would happen to a bridge in Boonville. Politics was at play. Nixon is a Democrat who was preparing his first run for governor. Blunt was a Republican who eventually decided not to run for reelection.
Blunt鈥檚 director of the Department of Natural Resources had awarded a contract to a Blunt donor to turn the old railway bridge, which carried the cross-state Katy Trail, into scrap metal. Nixon filed a quo warranto writ against the DNR director. He said he wasn鈥檛 trying to remove the man from office, the more frequent use of a quo warranto, but stop what he called an illegal transaction.
鈥淨uo is a little like legal tofu,鈥 Nixon told me at the time. 鈥淲hen you cook anything with tofu, it absorbs the flavor.鈥
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I tell the story because the obscure legal term 鈥 quo warranto 鈥 is now front and center in a dispute over the leadership of the St. 亚洲无码 County Council.
Funny thing is, I never understood Nixon鈥檚 quote until now, but make no mistake, the stew that surrounds this particular quo has a funny smell to it. As I mentioned in my Monday column, on Saturday, County Counselor Beth Orwick filed the quo warranto motion in St. 亚洲无码 County Circuit Court seeking to remove Councilwoman Rita Days and Councilman Mark Harder from the chairman and vice chairman positions they claimed after a vote taken at a council meeting last Friday. Orwick and her fellow plaintiffs, Councilwoman Lisa Clancy and Councilman Ernie Trakas, argue that vote was illegal.
Clancy and Trakas were elected chairman and vice chairman on Jan. 5. In that vote, outgoing Councilwoman Rochelle Walton Gray voted for Clancy and Trakas. Seven days later, Gray was replaced by the woman who defeated her in the election, Shalonda Webb. On Friday, Webb voted for Days and Harder. Gray and Webb are both Black and represent north St. 亚洲无码 County.
The question in the legal battle is whether a conflict in the charter allowed Gray to vote in the first vote, and whether the charter has a mechanism that allows for a revote. I suspect, based on the legal reasoning in Orwick鈥檚 position, and the various arguments that have been put forward by the opponents of Clancy and Trakas, that the quo warranto is on solid legal footing.
Clancy and Trakas followed the advice of the county鈥檚 attorney. The first vote was legal. End of story.
But legalities are only part of this story. The politics matter, too, and that鈥檚 the part that leaves everybody with the sort of stink that is hard to wash off. The way to think of Clancy鈥檚 move, in a political context, is to recall the U.S. Senate moves orchestrated by soon-to-be former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky. Back in 2016, when, nearing the end of two terms, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland for a position on the U.S. Supreme Court, McConnell blocked even a hearing for Garland, using Senate rules. Then, last year, when President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett even later in the process, McConnell rushed the nomination through.
Democrats were aghast at the hypocrisy, but they didn鈥檛 force a new extra-constitutional vote over McConnell鈥檚 leadership, as happened in St. 亚洲无码 County. McConnell didn鈥檛 break any laws. He played political hardball. Perhaps his moves backfired and contributed to the loss of both the presidency and the Senate.
When Clancy was faced with a conflict in the county charter over when the chairman is picked (at the first meeting), and the fact that the new members weren鈥檛 seated until later than the previous version of the charter called for, she could have, perhaps, delayed the meeting and allowed Webb to vote instead of Gray. That鈥檚 what former Republican Councilman Colleen Wasinger argued in an op-ed in this paper on Tuesday: 鈥淭he legality of the situation is one matter,鈥 she wrote, 鈥渂ut common sense should make everyone wonder: Why in the world was the first meeting of the year not scheduled to occur the day of the swearing in?鈥
It is a good question, and definitely feels, to me, at least, like the more democratic decision.
But then Clancy might have lost the chairmanship to Days, who has been voting with Republican Tim Fitch to try to limit County Executive Sam Page鈥檚 ability to issue orders regarding the coronavirus pandemic. What鈥檚 the greater good: Protecting the management of the pandemic from political skullduggery, led by those spreading lies on Facebook, or avoiding the charge that you are guilty of a political power grab?
Clancy is guilty. She did grab political power away from her opponents. A judge will determine whether she did so legally. Voters will decide at a later date whether it was a prudent decision. In the meantime, the entire council swims in a tofu stew, destined to soak up the flavor of constant conflict of their own making.