---------------------------
By JIM BURROWS
Daily News staff writer
---------------------------
For a second time a court has denied a request by Martin Lindstedt, the chairman of the Newton County Libertarian Party (NCLP), to have his name placed on the November 5 General Election ballot as that party's candidate for Newton County sheriff.
In September Circuit Judge Tim Perigo denied Lindstedt's writ of mandamus in which Lindstedt wanted the judge to force County Clerk Kay Baum to have his name printed on the election ballot. In denying the writ, the judge noted Missouri law says "the person receiving the greatest number of votes at a primary election as a party candidate for an office shall be the only (emphasis added) candidate of that party for the office at the general election.
"Accordingly, this court is prohibited by state law from granting Relator's (Lindstedt's) requested relief. The law does provide for write-in candidates."
The past week an appellate court upheld that decision.
A writ of mandamus in legalese is an "extraordinary remedy." It is a method to compel a public official, a corporate officer or judge to perform a ministerial duty which he has a duty to perform. Mandamus is available only when there is an already existing legal right, according to the Missouri Press-Bar Commission.
Lindstedt lost a primary election, bid for governor to Springfield Libertarian candidate J. Mark Oglesby. Political parties reorganize following the primary election and in the case of the NCLP, members reelected Lindstedt chairman. And a nominating committee nominated him as the NCLP's candidate for sheriff, even though he had not filed for that position during the appropriate filing period.
Mrs. Baum refused to have his name printed on the election ballot as his name had not been certified by the secretary of state.
Lindstedt filed the mandamus suit which Judge Perigo denied, at which time Lindstedt filed a declaration of candidacy as a write-in candidate for sheriff.
Early last week Lindstedt submitted a writ of mandamus and petition for judicial review of election laws to the Missouri Supreme court, naming County Clerk Baum and Secretary of State Rebecca Cook as defendants. The Supreme Court wouldn't allow the case to be filed until it had passed through an appellate court. So Lindstedt filed the writ with the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, in Springfield.
Thursday that court issued an order, saying it had examined the petition and denied the writ of mandamus and petition for judicial review of the election laws.
"The next stop for Plaintiff/Relator is to ask for the court's findings of fact/conclusions of law behind their determination, which they will refuse to give, and then up to the Missouri Supreme Court, which will try a similar dodge," Lindstedt said Friday.
Although Baum and Cook are named as defendants in the redundant 19-page suit Lindstedt attempted to file with the Supreme Court, the bulk of the indictment is against Prosecutor Greg Bridges. Bridges acted as Baum's legal advisor in the local court suit. Lindstedt wrote in his suit Bridges had misquoted the law in his legal response to Lindstedt's writ.
He wrote, "If lawyers are allowed to misquote the law whenever it suits their purposes, then courtrooms will be filled with a whole swarm of these licensed human vultures babbling deceit under color of professed ignorance, stealing everything not red-hot or nailed down from private citizens who don't or can't bother to crack open a single law book and catch them at it."
Lindstedt also attacks Judge Perigo and says their is a one-party Republican rule of Newton County in which Democrats only put up token candidates. He compares that to "a one-party-rule state like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia."
He says there are at least two reasons why he has a slim chance for election as sheriff in November. First the difficulty of voters spelling his name. And second, he "has less than a splendid chance to win the election as a write-in candidate since he doesn't have a single relative counting the votes for him, or even a friendly political hack working in the election commission of Newton County. Certainly not, now that Relator (Lindstedt) has taken up suing Newton County election officials."
Page One, The Neosho Daily News
Sunday, October 13, 1996
.
Back to Press Clippings or
Lindstedt for Sheriff or
Patrick Henry On-Line?