IRVINE : City Law Assailed in Gaido Election Case

Hearing arguments on Mary Ann Gaido’s attempt to be seated on the City Council, state appellate justices on Tuesday took sharp jabs at the Irvine election law that allowed the court case to arise.

For 1 1/2 hours, justices of the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana heard attorneys debate whether Gaido should fill an open seat on the council or whether it should be filled in the Nov. 6 election. Under city law, Gaido would have taken the seat left vacant by Sally Ann Sheridan’s mayoral victory in the June 5 election if citizens had not successfully circulated a petition calling for a special council election.

Although Gaido had attacked the citizens’ petition for not disclosing that the council vacancy could be filled without an election, Justice Thomas F. Crosby said voters in the June balloting were probably unaware that Gaido, a losing candidate, would be able to fill Sheridan’s seat if Sheridan won the mayoral contest.

“Your client might have been seated by a completely uninformed electorate,” Crosby told attorney John C. Adams III, who represented Gaido. “Isn’t that a denial of the franchise to Irvine voters?”

Irvine’s election laws, which create the possibility of voters electing three people to the City Council by voting for only two of them, seems “shaky,” Crosby said. “I’ve never heard of a system like that in a Democratic system.”

Justice Edward J. Wallin suggested that it would have been equally simple to tell voters to vote for three candidates, with the two highest vote-getters taking council seats and the third taking office only if Sheridan were elected mayor.

“But that isn’t the way Irvine does it,” he mused. “They like the screwed-up system.”

The justices are expected to rule in a few days.

Irvine’s City Charter called for Gaido, who finished third in the race for two council seats, to take Sheridan’s seat unless residents filed a petition signed by 7% of the city’s registered voters.

Gaido sued, however, alleging that the petitions did not state that the seat could be filled without an election.

Although a Superior Court judge agreed and ordered Gaido seated on the council, the council refused and appealed.