Joe Tarr raised an interesting issue that I was just chatting with a friend about – Statement of Interest forms.
THE ORDINANCE
Yeah, that IS what it says . . .
3.35(9)(c)Statement of Interests, When To File. All persons who file nomination papers for an elective office of the City of Madison shall at the time of filing of such nomination papers also file a Statement of Interests with the City Clerk. The Clerk shall omit the name of any candidate from an election ballot who fails to disclose her or his interests in accordance with the requirement of this subsection. The Clerk shall notify by registered mail any candidate whose name is to be omitted from a ballot as soon as practicable after the decision is made to omit the name.
Curious if the city attorney finds that the ordinance passed a few city attorney’s ago in 1998 is legal. Hate the city attorney russian roulette game.
MAKE THE INFO MORE READILY AVAILABLE
If the information is enough to get you kicked off the ballot, why don’t they link it on-line? In fact, why aren’t all statement of interest forms on-line? They were on-line in 2011, but not for 2012? (at least not at the time of posting)
COUNTY RULES
The county has different rules – according to the clerks site they “Can be filed within 2 weeks of the filing deadline, or by January 16, 2013.”
You can search on line for county economic interest forms – kinda.
Statements of Economic Interest
Nothing is currently available there either.
WELL?
Interested to see what happens. Generally, I am totally in favor of people being on the ballot and not making the bar too high. But I am also adamant that the Statement of Interest forms should be filled out . . . perhaps the county’s version is better in this case. Fines during an election for not filling out the forms would likely have a deterrent effect and still allow people who screw up to be on the ballot and recover from a paperwork snafu. And, if they are avoiding filling out the forms, that will come out and the voters can decide.
