Snafu Foils an American Dream

Micheal O’Leary says he has dreamed all his life of being an American politician.

But it didn’t register with the Irish immigrant how tricky American politics could be until he tried to run for City Council in Culver City.

O’Leary wasn’t expecting problems when he visited City Hall on Jan. 8 to pick up his candidacy papers. But municipal officials told him he was ineligible to run because he was not registered to vote in the city.

O’Leary produced the registration receipt stub that was given to him on July 25, the day he became an American citizen and then immediately signed up as a voter. The moment had been so important that he even had a friend videotape him handing the registration form over to a voter-signup official.

His protests were to no avail, however. Los Angeles County elections officials cannot find the registration form. So O’Leary has been disqualified to be on the April 13 Culver City election ballot.

“It’s always been a goal of mine to get into the political arena. I’ve watched politicians and always told myself I could do better at looking at both sides of issues before evaluating them,” O’Leary says.

“When I was 10 years old, I cried when I read that I couldn’t be president of the United States because I wasn’t born here.”

But O’Leary -- whose Irish first name is pronounced “Me-haul” -- found out that he was potentially eligible to run for every other American office. So 15 years ago he came to this country and began mapping out his political future. He says he picked the hospitality industry as his career -- and eventually opened an Irish pub on Washington Boulevard -- in part because it put him in contact with a wide variety of people every day.

He chose the West Coast to live on because he felt people here seemed more embracing of newcomers than those in the East. O’Leary, 38, settled in Culver City because of its small-town charm in the middle of a major metropolis. Then he bought a house there and set out to become a U.S. citizen.

On July 25, he joined about 10,000 others who were sworn in as new Americans in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Then he made a beeline to the first voter-registration booth he spied outside the hall.

The canopy-shaded card table was manned by volunteers from the Republican party. O’Leary turned in the voter registration form he had picked up earlier at the Culver City post office to booth worker Mary Sands. The pair bantered about his Irish ancestry and the “declined to state” political party box on the form that he checked as a friend’s video camera recorded the scene.

It was Sands who tore off the registration form receipt and handed it to O’Leary, and wished him well.

O’Leary returned to Culver City and began laying the groundwork for his campaign. He volunteered to be golf committee chairman at his church, began cultivating friends among Culver City police officers and firefighters, and got involved with youth soccer.

He talked up his political ambitions with patrons of his pub and restaurant, Joxer Daly’s.

“The City Council seems to speak in unison, in what seems a monotone. I don’t hear much emotion,” he explained.

It was when time came to throw his hat into the ring that O’Leary discovered he wasn’t listed as a registered voter with the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office.

O’Leary volunteered to immediately re-register. Sorry, city officials responded. A Culver City municipal ordinance specifies that candidates “must have been lawfully registered voters of the city for 30 days immediately preceding the filing of their nomination papers.” And the April 13 election filing period would end on Jan. 16, eight days after O’Leary’s visit to City Hall.

At the suggestion of city officials, O’Leary checked with county elections administrators to see if there had been a paperwork mix-up that could resolve the issue. County workers found no evidence that the July 25 registration was filed. But they agreed to register O’Leary on the spot on Jan. 9.

By the end of this week, Culver City officials had certified the official candidate roster for the April council election. Three seats are up for grabs, and the names of the three incumbents and three challengers are listed. O’Leary’s name is not.

“It’s obviously put me in a tremendous predicament,” O’Leary said. “I might be able to run as a write-in. But actually being on the ballot, having your name out there, is much more beneficial.”

County elections officials say they are sympathetic. But they cannot back-date O’Leary’s properly recorded Jan. 9 registration, even though there may be evidence that he intended to register July 25.

Grace Chavez, a spokeswoman for the registrar-recorder, said Friday there was no way of determining what happened to O’Leary’s first registration form.

“We make every attempt when individuals have voter registration drives to stress the importance of turning in the signed affidavit of registration. It probably either fell out of the bundle, or maybe it came here and something happened. I can’t tell you what happened.”

Sands, the volunteer who accepted O’Leary’s registration form outside the Sports Arena, said she didn’t know what went wrong, either.

“In the process, sometimes something can fall through the cracks,” said Sands, who is president of Pasadena Republican Women Federated. O’Leary thought at first that the fact that he didn’t register as a Republican meant his form was not processed. But Sands said her group submits all forms regardless of party affiliation.

“Registration for all parties are taken. I just want new voters to be patriotic Americans,” Sands said Friday.

O’Leary’s supporters, meanwhile, say they’re willing to wait two years for the next Culver City election if he doesn’t run as a write-in. Culver City’s municipal offices were closed Friday and officials were unavailable to comment on O’Leary’s possible write-in candidacy.

“Micheal has tried to do everything right as a new citizen. He’s gone through all the steps. Being a politician is something he has always wanted. It’s horrible he has to wait,” said supporter Woody Chiricosta.