Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

Contributors:

Reporter William March has covered state and national politics since 1994. Email

Reporter Christian M. Wade has covered the City of Tampa since 2008. Email

Reporter Mike Salinero has covered Hillsborough County government for The Tampa Tribune since 2007. Email

Reporter Lindsay Peterson has been a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Tribune since 2005, focusing on higher education since 2009. Email

Florida Political Blogs:

More Resources:

Most Recent Entries

Monthly Archives

Fresh Squeezed Politics - March On Politics Blog

Coffey To File Nelson’s Lawsuit Over Primary

Posted Sep 28, 2007 by Billy House, Tribune Washington Bureau

Updated Sep 28, 2007 at 01:44 PM

Kendall Coffey, the former U.S. Attorney for South Florida known for high-profile, sometimes controversial cases, is preparing a lawsuit by Florida Democrats over the state’s primary date and the Democratic National Party sanctions.

The papers are to be filed Wednesday or Thursday in U.S. District Court in either Tampa or Miami, said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, one of the Florida Democrats leading the battle.

A draft is already written, but Gulley said points “are not totally nailed down, yet.” Also not decided is how many Democrats will be joining Nelson and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Miramar as plaintiffs.

Coffey, who Gulley said is working on the case for no fee, could not immediately be reached for comment.

A former Clinton administration U.S. Attorney and a frequent television legal commentator, Coffey was the lead lawyer for the family who sought to keep Elian Gonzalez in the United States and was involved in the 2000 presidential recount litigation. He is also remembered for having lost his U.S. attorney’s job after biting a stripper.

The Democratic National Committee has said it will refuse to seat a Florida delegation at the national convention because the state Democrats have decided to choose their delegates based on the state’s Jan. 29 presidential primary. The primary is too early to suit the party’s rules.

Gulley said the lawsuit will include references to the 1962 Supreme Court case Baker v. Carr, a voting rights case.

Nelson said the suit “won’t be about the rules of a political party. It’ll be about the right of every person to have access to the ballot box, and to have their vote count. It’ll be about the fundamental concept of one person, one vote,” said Nelson, in a statement released today by his office.

Columbia University School of Law Professor Nathaniel Persily, an expert on elections law, said he expects the case to concern “the right of voters to have their votes counted when the state and national party force a system that drains their votes of all meaning.”

“You have the Republican-held Legislature and the Republican governor—who I understand says the primary date won’t be changed—and the rules of the Democratic National Committee, effectively preventing Florida’s Democratic voters from having any say in who one of the presidential nominees will be,” said Persily.

Tampa political activist Victor DiMaio, repressented by local lawyer Mike Steinberg, have already filed a lawsuit over the sanctions. They said they expect their lawsuit to be consolidated with the congress members’ litigation.

(0) Read Comments