Washington Supreme Court sets timeline for Sawant appeal of recall petition

The Supreme Court of Washington State has now set the schedule for an appeal to decide whether a petition to recall Kshama Sawant can move forward.

Kshama Sawant files appeal with state Supreme Court over recall petition

This came after a good deal of back-and-forth arguments between Sawant’s lawyers and petitioners. Petitioners had initially pushed to expedite the appeals process, to give them enough time to gather signatures and then hold a citywide recall vote during April’s special election (a recall must take place as part of a previously-scheduled election).

That would have had Sawant’s team file their opening brief by Nov. 13, then petitioners would respond by Nov. 30, followed by a reply from Sawant by Dec. 3. Sawant’s lawyers countered with a more drawn-out timeline, which would have seen the opening filed by Dec. 14, the response by Dec. 21, and then follow with an additional week-long process to file a supplemental brief.

Ultimately, the state Supreme Court split the difference, setting a Nov. 23 deadline for the opening brief, Dec. 3 for the response, and Dec. 10 for a reply from Sawant’s lawyers. After that, it expects to deliberate on the case and likely issue a ruling on Jan. 7.

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Under that timeline, SCC Insight’s Kevin Schofield estimates “that’s still probably not enough time for the petitioners to collect enough signatures to get the recall on the April election ballot,” assuming the court allows the petition to move forward. In total, petitioners would have to gather just over 10,700 certified paper signatures from registered voters, a number that would constitute 25% of total votes cast in the last District 3 election.

In October, the state Supreme Court threw out a similar petition to recall Mayor Jenny Durkan, unanimously ruling that the charges levied against her were “factually and legally insufficient.”

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