Gloucester County Citizens for Accountable Representation

For those not familiar with the Gloucester County Citizens for Accountable Representation and its efforts to remove 4 members of its Board of Supervisors (see the post below this one), this is their website although info is scant at this time. http://gccfar.org/ The website does outline the statuatory process the GCCAR followed in seeking the ouster of the 4 BOS members.

A time-line of the events can be found here:

http://xml.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_glotimeline_1101nov01,0,2444522.story

The actions of the GCCAR, as well as the recent decision of Circuit Court Judge Westbrook J. Parker, have garnered national attention from experts in Constitutional law. Experts seem to agree that Judge Parker's ruling, tossing out the petitions of the GCCAR and ordering the 40 members (who sought the requisite signatures on the petitions) to pay the attorney's fees of the 4 BOS members as well as court costs (see the article in the post below this one) is probably violative of the 1st Amendment and that GCCAR members could possibly win an appeal.

From the Newport News Daily Press archives (retrieved from Google's cache):

Experts: Ruling May Be Illegal: Many Say Judge's Penalty Against Gloucester Petitioners Might Violate the First Amendment

By Cory Nealon, Daily Press, Newport News, Va. ( http://www.dailypress.com )

Dec. 21--GLOUCESTER -- -- Whether it's the founding of the country or daffodil cultivation, Gloucester County is no stranger to breaking new ground.

It has seldom, if ever, done so in matters of law.

That is, until Wednesday, when a judge fined 40 Gloucester County residents who unsuccessfully petitioned to remove four county supervisors from office.

"This may be brand-new territory," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. "I don't think this has ever happened in Virginia."

And rarely elsewhere, apparently.

Tobias is one of handful of legal experts in Virginia and beyond who said that they were stunned by Circuit Court Judge Westbrook J. Parker's ruling and that it might violate the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment states in part that citizens may petition the government for a "redress of grievances."

The residents, who call themselves the Gloucester County Citizens for Accountable Representation, sought to remove the supervisors -- Teresa Altemus, Bobby Crewe, Michelle Ressler and Gregory Woodard -- after a special grand jury indicted the foursome on 14 charges of misuse of office. The charges, as well as the petitions, were dismissed from court. As a result, Parker ordered the county to pay nearly $125,000 in legal fees that the supervisors accrued.

Of those fees, Parker ordered the 40 petition-circulating members of the citizens' group to pay $2,000 each toward the county's cost, saying the petitioners misused the judicial system. He justified the sanctions by saying it would be unfair to make the county -- and therefore the citizens who didn't sign the petitions -- to pay the entire bill.

Legal scholars such as Tobias and Robert M. O'Neil, a noted constitutional law professor and former president at University of Virginia, said the ruling could infringe upon the First Amendment.

"A court should protect a citizen, plaintiff or lawyer seeking redress," said O'Neil, also director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, a free-speech advocacy group. "This is a most unusual type of sanction. I haven't seen anything like this."

In his ruling, the judge agreed with points made by the supervisors' attorneys, who said their clients were victims of a political conspiracy to oust them from office. Parker said the appropriate avenue for the petitioners was elections, not the judicial system.

The view isn't surprising, said Kareem Crayton, an associate at the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. In many states, he said, it's very onerous to remove an elected official from office -- unlike in states with a recall, such as California.

He likened removal to impeachment -- which former President Bill Clinton endured and survived -- rather than to a recall, which led to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governor. Still, Crayton -- also a law and political science professor -- said the sanctions ordered by Parker were unusual.

"It is rare, indeed, for a court to fine people exercising a right that allows them to petition the government," he said.

Virginia law says elected officials, if brought to court on charges that are dismissed, may seek attorney fees from the government. It's uncommon, Tobias said, for a judge to supersede a specific statute in favor of a more general statute -- in this case, a judge's authority to impose sanctions on a civil litigant who brings what the judge deems a baseless suit to court.

As of Friday, the petitioners had yet to decide whether they'll appeal Parker's decision. The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed interest in the case but won't proceed unless the petitioners give the go-ahead.

Tobias said he thought that they would stand a decent chance at reversing the ruling.

He said, "It may be that they would win that appeal."

The final outcome of this interesting exercise of citizens' rights to petition their goverment for "redress of grievances" bears watching.