Patterson had been elected as a Democrat to LD 29 twice in 2008 and 2010 and earlier this year changed his voter registration to Independent on April 2, 2012. Upon his resignation that AZ Secretary of State informed the Chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors Ramon Valadez that a replacement should be an Independent (No Party Preference) in LD 29, since Patterson was an Independent when he formally resigned.

Today the Pima County Board of Supervisors appointed a 5 member citizen’s committee to review applications and submit 3 names to them within a week. The deadline for applicants is 3 p.m. Wednesday April 18, to Pima County Clerk Robin Brigode.

The Supervisors, after some discussion this morning about publicity and transparency, appointed to the citizen’s committee:

–former LD 29 State Senator Victor Soltero (D)
–former LD 29 State House Rep. Tom Prezelski (D, who ironically lost to Patterson in Sept.2008 in the Democratic primary)
–former LD 9 State House Rep. Lou-Ann Preble (R)
–Kristin Almquist (I), former Director of Tucson office for Governor Janet Napolitano
–Julee Dawson (I), Development director at the Tucson Hebrew Academy

The Board’s motion to appoint these individuals was passed unanimously and gave the committee a deadline of 3 p.m. Friday to select 3 names for the appointment, in order to allow community input over the weekend. Then the Supervisors will select the appointee at a special board meeting at 10 a.m. on April 23.

Present at today’s meeting was Independent* James Kelley, a transportation specialist for Union Pacific Railroad personnel, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, formerly “The Cholla Jumps” blogger here at Tucsoncitizen.com before he created his own blogsite (no longer in operation). Kelley is the only applicant so far for this LD 29 House seat.

At today’s meeting District 4 Supervisor Ray Carroll inquired if Pima County Elections or the Recorder’s Office could attempt to send a “robo-call” to all Independents living in LD 29 to inform them of this vacancy and how to apply. The discussion seemed to indicate that this type of publicity would be cost-prohibitive, especially with the contested CD 8 House primary election tomorrow.

* Update: Kelley told me at the meeting today that he is an Independent, but according to Pima County Recorder’s Office, he is still registered as a Republican (and has been since June, 2003). I’ve called Kelley for clarification on this, as he has served as Chair of the LD 29 Republican Party in the past. I just spoke with Kelley and he did register as an Independent on April 11, 2012 (the same day Patterson resigned), and has written confirmation of this from the AZ Secretary of State.

Darcy submitted 3,104 signatures to qualify to run as an Independent in the 2011 General Election. The minimum required for a Nomination Other than Primary (NOP)/Independent is 2596 signatures per the Tucson City Clerk’s office. Darcy could collect signatures from registered City voters “as long as they had not already signed a petition for another candidate running for the same office.”

I first reported on Darcy back in March when he was considering this bid as an Independent (click here).

Darcy only registered as an Independent on April 1, 2011, and took out paperwork with the City Clerk on Friday May 13, 2011 to run for Mayor. He has been registered as a Democrat since 1971 per Chris Roads (Deputy Recorder & Registrar of Voters) at the Pima County Recorder’s Office. Darcy is a realtor in Tucson with CB Richard Ellis and is best known as a former pitcher for the Major league Cincinnati Reds baseball team.

The motion for a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit was filed by Plaintiff citizen Sam Almy, reresented by attorney Bill Risner. 908 signatures submitted by Darcy were challenged and 614 were found invalid due to signatures by people not registered to vote (196), people who had signed previous Mayoral petitions (138), people not registered in the City of Tucson limits (277), and people indicating the wrong date of their signature (3). Therefore Darcy had only 2490 valid signatures, less than the 2596 required to be eligible as an Independent in the General Election 2011.

Darcy did take the stand in his defense today and said that the people of Tucson wanted “honest dialogue” which is why he was running as an Independent. He appeared at today’s hearing pro se, without an attorney.

Tomorrow’s court hearing is a similiar challenge regarding invalid signatures against Mayoral candidate Republican Shaun McClusky.

Marshall Home and wife Mary

A “patriot and not a politician” (as he calls himself) and “multi-billionaire” Marshall Edwin Home filed to run for Mayor for Tucson on March 16. The Tucson City Clerk’s website does not list his party affiliation, only “Nomination other than by primary”. Home told me he will be challenging Jonathan Rothschild in the Democratic primary on August 30. *(update below)

He also stated on the phone that he as a Plaintiff has filed a lawsuit Home vs. State of Arizona, Case no. 11-0081 in U.S. Federal District Court (Tucson) concerning mortgage foreclosures. Records indicate this lawsuit was filed on January 31, 2011.

Email from Mrs. Home:

Marshall and I are appalled at the “backroom politics” going on in Tucson. We are suing the State of Arizona and the Federal Gov to stop the foreclosure racket sweeping the nation. We host INDEPENDENT RIGHTS PARTY every Sat a.m. at 10 o’clock to noon and stand up for our rights, en masse, and stop being the pawns in the chess game for the politicians. We are the Kings and Queens of America. All political power is inherent in the people, not the fiction corporations. We are also debt free if people only knew the rules of the game in our courts.

Thanks for contacting Marshall and please be our guest for breakfast at Biscuits Restaurant, 7026 E. Broadway & Kolb behind the Gas Light Theatre whenever you want to meet a bunch of happy people.

Photo of a meeting of the Independent Rights Party, courtesy of the Homes:

This race for Mayor of Tucson is becoming a crowded one, with 2 Republicans running (Shaun McClusky and Ron Asta), Democrats Jonathan Rothschild and now Marshall Home, and possibly Independent (former Democrat) Pat Darcy. Both Asta and Darcy have run for Mayor before, and lost (1983 and 1999 respectively).

For more info contact political newcomer Marshall Home at ehome@q.com. And for more information on this “Independent Rights Party” drop by their breakfast meeting tomorrow.

* 3/21/11 UPDATE: Spoke with Chris Roads, Pima County Deputy Recorder & Registrar of Voters who stated that Marshall Home first registered to vote in 1993, with the following history of changes:

1993 Republican
1994 Democrat
1995 Republican
2010 Independent

According to their records, Home has been registered at 2772 W. St. Tropaz Ave. (in Ward 1) all this time, until October 20,2010 when he registered at 3051 W. Mexico St. which is not in the City of Tucson. On March 18 (two days after he filed for Mayor) Home changed his registration address back to St. Tropaz St. It would be up to the Tucson City Clerk’s office to check whether he has lived in the City for the 3 years before he filed to run for Mayor.

So it appears that Home is registered as an “Independent” and will not be challenging Rothschild in the Democratic primary as he told me over the phone on Friday. Stay tuned.

3/25/11 UPDATE: Home has officially changed his party affiliation to Democrat:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/community/2011/03/25/mayoral-candidate-billionaire-marshall-home-changes-party-affilication-to-democrat/

Ms. Cajero Bedford just won the Democratic nomination for State Senate in that same district, and faces little opposition in the General Election, only write-in Republican candidates Duke Schechter and Jaime Vasquez.

The CCEC debate is at PCC West campus
West Campus Student Lounge
2202 W Anklam Rd
at 6 p.m.
and the video of this debate will be available online w/in 72 hours, at http://www.azcleanelections.gov/home/video/generaldebatevids2010.aspx

However there is lots of opposition for the 2 Democrats Sally Ann Gonzales and Dr. Macario Saldate nominated in the August 24 house primary. Their websites are: http://www.votemacariosaldate2010.info/, and www.www.votesallygonzales.com. Gonzales is President of Guadalupe Community Development Corp., and is a former 2 term District 10 House Rep.(1996 to 2000), former Tribal Council member & Secretary of Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona (1992 – 1996). Dr. Macario Saldate IV, is the Director of Guadalajara Summer School,and a retired UA Educational Foundations & Administration professor.

Republican Robert Compton, a service technician at Hamstra heating/cooling company (www.thatcomptonguy.com) is making his first bid for public office. Green Party candidate Solberg ran before for this seat in 2008, and is the owner of Kent’s Tools (a small business on Grant Road), www.kent4house.org. Chaplain Gene Chewning (www.votechewning.com) ran for this seat in 2006 as a Republican, and is now an Independent seeking one of the these two House seats as well. So there’s one of each– Republican, Green, and Independent, facing off with the 2 Democrats.

All candidates are participating in the “clean” elections program.

Choose between 2 of these 5 candidates for LD 27 House of Representatives. LD 27 has
the following registered voters: 40,600 Democrats, 16,156 Republicans, 800 Libertarians, 295 Greens, and 24,290 Independents, for a total of 82,151 voters (from Pima County Recorders website, click here.)

UPDATE 9/15/10: CCEC video online click here.

Gene Chewning

Robert Compton

Sally Ann Gonzales

Dr. Macario Saldate

Kent Solberg

These were the state legislators that participated tonight (1st panel):
LD 25 House Rep. Pat Fleming (D)
LD 27 House candidates Sally Ann Gonzales and Dr. Macario Saldate (Ds)
LD 28 Senator Paula Aboud (D)
LD 28 Senate candidate Dave Ewoldt (I)
LD 28 House Rep. Steve Farley (D)
LD 28 House candidate Bruce Wheeler (D)
LD 30 House candidate Andrea Dalessandro (D)
LD 30 Senate candidate Dr. Todd Camenish (D), came in late

Also attending to participate in the 2nd panel were U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman,
Attorney General Terry Goddard running for Governor, Sec. of State candidate Chris Deschene, and State Mine Inspector candidate Manuel Cruz, all Democrats.

Questions asked of the panelists were basically about steps they would take to improve education, to bring economic opportunity to minority populations, to strengthen public health for communities of color, to provide quality health care, and to insure equal treatment in the criminal justice system for minority populations. Being as these were all Democrats (and one Independent, formerly a Green Party activist) their answers were quite uniform in advocating and trying to restore funding to all these areas.

Of note: Sally Ann Gonzales mentioned that she is of Yaqui heritage, Chris Deschene is a member of the Navajo Nation, and Manuel Cruz and Dr. Macario Saldate are Hispanic, and provided their ethnic backgrounds and expertise to their responses.

The last question was about what steps could be taken to insure a fair and just dialogue re: immigration reform, and both Rodney Glassman and Terry Goddard said that could be done by “retiring John McCain.” Chris Deschene repeatedly asked the audience to elect Democrats to the state legislature, where he currently serves as House Rep. in LD 2.

Also in attendance tonight were former Pima County Democratic Party Chair Paul Eckerstrom for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and former Democratic Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom. Fellow blogger “3 Sonorans” (David Morales) was there as well, and will be posting a video capturing the panelists’ answers to some of these questions. I’ll link to his blog once he posts it. UPDATE: Unfortunately neither David nor I got a lot of advance notice of this forum, so his cell phone video did not tape well (see his comment below).