Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Who Is Funding All This?

The plaintiffs in the federal lawsuits filed against the county are certainly a tenacious bunch. In the face of defeat, they simply soldier on with re-filings and appeals.

All this costs money. Filing fees alone are probably over a thousand bucks and then there are the traffic and planning consultants they’ve hired. Are they working for free?

Is Susan Gray providing her legal services pro bono?

Or is someone, like say a certain union, footing the bill?

Of course they are under no obligation to share this information but if the tables were turned I bet they’d ask the same questions.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you think no one was going to call you out on the gross inaccuracies in this post?

Filing fees are about 8% of what you stated: http://www.courts.state.md.us/clerks/howard/

And funding from outside sources is not required much less connected.

Conspiracy theorists are always the first to cry 'conspiracy'.

Anonymous said...

Maybe stick to the retro weather reports and photos. That seems what you do best.

Lotsabogeys said...

Anon 6:54,

You are looking at state court fees. The federal fees are $350 to file a civil case and $450 for an appeal.

Two Federal suits would be $700 plus one appeal $450 is $1150. Since Susan Gray is involved in the suit about the petition signatures maybe some or all of those fess should be counted also. Another lawsuit was filed recently by Kendall/Martin/Gray over CB77-2007 so there is another $350.
http://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/publications/forms/feesnew.pdf

Buffalo Guy said...

Nothing in life is free - so I would give good odds that someone besides a couple of single residents are paying the lawyer in one form or another. It would be an interesting story if one could actually find out the details.

Anonymous said...

Man, the conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork on this one.

Let me guess. When things are going against you, there's a conspiracy. When things are going in your favor, you're ridiculing others as conspiracy theorists.

Beautiful. But some people actually care about the truth, not just backing up half-baked positions.

Buffalo Guy said...

C'mon Anon - lighten up. Everyone just loves a good conspiracy. By the way, I just heard that the CIA, Fidel Castro, and the Mafia all shop at Wegmans...

Bob O said...

A couple grand...chump change. You can do better than this.

Sue said...

The more important question that should be asked is:

Who is funding the political careers of those elected officials whose decisions are the subject of multiple state and federal challenges?

Anonymous said...

Excellent question, Sue. Exactly on target.

Dave W said...

Sue and Anon 6:16am, since you asked the question, you can easily find your answer right here:

http://www.mdelections.org/campaign-finance/candidate

wordbones said...

Sue,

That is really no mystery. The information is publicly available.

Many active and concerned citizens contribute to campaigns, including this old dog

-wb

Steve said...

There ya go..... just like Columbia, it only stands to reason that a similar cross section of people and interests are supporting the court cases.

A tip of the hat to those citizens that contribute their time and money to fight for causes they believe in.

LegalBeagle said...

I believe the CB77-2007 case was moved to federal court. This county regulation requires people who circulate petitions to declare whether they have been paid to do so.

CB77 evolved from the Board of Elections advising the County Executive & Council that their previous regulation - forbidding cirulators from being paid - violated both state and federal law.

Howard County is the only jurisdiction in MD, if not the vast majority of the US, to have such a regulation.

It would seem that this is a clear voting rights case, philosophically similar to the federal challenge that Gray/Kendall have filed over the Board of Elections decision to reject 85% of the referendum petition's signatures.

Buffalo Guy said...

This topic has evolved way beyond my comprehension - so I'll just shut up now. Here's the document LegalB refered to if anyone is interested.

http://www.co.ho.md.us/CountyCouncil/CCdocs/T-CB77-2007.pdf