California Assemby Speaker Fabien Nunez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata will ask a Sacramento area court on Thursday to join the lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to remove Prop. 77, the redistricting initiative supported by Republican Governor Schwarzenegger, from the November Special Election ballot.

If Núñez and Perata are denied permission to join as intervenors, which essentially would make them parties to Lockyer’s suit, Olson said they would file their own litigation against Proposition 77.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is to have the matter removed from the ballot,” he said. “We’re talking about the rule of law here – and the rule of law is that this shouldn’t be on the ballot.”

Lockyer’s suit, filed Friday, claims that proponents of the measure to overhaul how California draws legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization seats failed to comply with procedural requirements to qualify a state initiative.

Lockyer contends he has a duty, as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, to seek judicial resolution of the matter.

“It’s not a partisan issue for him, it’s a matter of policy,” said Nathan Barankin, the attorney general’s spokesman.

Right!

Specifically, Lockyer’s suit said wording on the document used to gather signatures was different from the text submitted to Lockyer’s office for a title and summary, which formally launched the initiative’s petition drive.

Attorney Daniel Kolkey, representing leaders of the redistricting campaign, concedes that there were discrepancies and attributes them to human error – someone mistakenly sent the wrong version of the initiative to the printer, he said.

Kolkey argues that wording differences were minor, did not affect the substance of the measure and should not be used to thwart the will of voters.

Kolkey personally notified Secretary of State Bruce McPherson about the problem on June 13, three days after the redistricting measure qualified for the ballot.

McPherson, a Republican and former state legislator, has called the situation unprecedented but said he plans to place the redistricting measure before voters Nov. 8 unless a judge deems otherwise.

McPherson said he has an obligation to place before Californians any issue that 900,000 voters have demanded a right to consider.

“My presumption is that the people who signed the petition knew what they were signing,” he said.

McPherson, a defendant in the suit, opposes the intervenor request by Núñez and Perata.

“Additional involvement could mean additional time – and time is of the essence,” he said. “We need a quick resolution of this issue.”

If this measure is removed from the special election ballot then the rationale for holding an off-year election will disappear. Remember the Governor argued that the redistricting measure is imperative so that new legislative districts would be available to voters in 2006.

Will the Governor trade Prop. 77 for a bipartisan competing measure that also allows a change in term limits (to appease Nunez since he is soon termed out of office)?

Will the Governor cancel the Special Election entirely if Prop. 77 is removed from the ballot? The rumours around the Capital have legislative legal folks researching legal precedent to cancel the election.

Or will Prop. 77 survive and the Governor makes no deals?

Stay tuned.

Cross-posted to The Bear Flag League Special Election Page