The organizers of the petition drive to put the repeal of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance on the November ballot filed an emergency petition for writ of mandamus yesterday.
HERO Petition Mandamus 08-11-2014
This is the most critical paragraph to me:
The harm arising from the Relators’ wrongful rejection of the ERO Referendum Petition is irreparable. Under the terms of City of Houston’s Charter, ordinances like the ERO may only be challenged within the first 30 days of the enactment or publication, whichever is later. Once that initial 30 day deadline passes, the right to repeal by referendum petition evaporates. Thus, by improperly rejecting the ERO Referendum Petition, Respondents have wrongfully stripped these Relators from their right to petition government for a redress of their grievances, in violation of the Houston City Charter, as well as the State and Federal Constitutions.
I think that these numbers from City Secretary Anna Russell are informative, especially given the wild accusations that the petition gathering process was sloppy and filled with mistakes:
A total of 19,177 signatures were checked. The names were checked against the Harris County list of qualified voters and were checked to determine whether the address was within the City of Houston.
17,846 signatures appearing on the petition contained correct information as required being (1) signature, (2) printed name, (3) voter registration number/residence address; and (4) date of signing.
So, of the 19,177 signatures she checked, 17,846 were valid. That’s about a 93{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} success rate, which is very high especially considering the short time the group had to gather the signatures.
Let’s hope that the Fourteenth Court of Appeals reverses the Mayor’s politically motivated rejection of the petition and the city puts the recall on the ballot.