JACKSON, Miss.–It looks like state Sen. Chris McDaniel will have to take his fight to become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate to court. Wednesday the Mississippi Republican Party said it would not investigate the 200 plus pages of evidence presented Monday by McDaniel’s camp.
McDaniel’s request was that the GOP throw out the results from several counties and appoint him the nominee, based on evidence that some political analysts said was hearsay, or had already been debunked.
“The state’s Republican 52-member executive committee needs more than just five hours to listen to legal arguments and then overturn a U.S. Senate primary,” said GOP Chairman Joe Nosef, Jr. in a statement. He said that time constraints would prevent them from properly seeing the matter through.
This is part of a letter sent to McDaniel’s attorney, Mitch Tyner, from Nosef:
LINK: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfc6a18ax1k2vr8/Chairman%20Nosef%27s%20Letter%20to%20Mitch%20Tyner.pdf
Since a petition for judicial review would by law terminate our committee’s jurisdiction over this
matter at the latest on August 14, 2014, this would afford our committee, at most, one day to at
a minimum:
1. consider and determine the proper procedural rules that should govern an unprecedented
proceeding of this type;
2. hear and vote on legal arguments regarding the timeliness of this challenge, see Kellum v.
Johnson, 115 So. 2d 147 (Miss. 1959) (which appears to impose a 20 day time limit from the
runoff to file a challenge);
3. issue fiats to the various county executive committee chairmen across the state implicated
by the challenge, have each committee investigate the complaint and return their findings to
the chairman of the state committee;
4. hear testimony from the potentially dozens of witnesses who have been named in the
challenge;
5. examine the wide variety of evidence cited in the challenge and presented by other
interested parties; and
6. finally, engage in proper deliberation and render a decision on the challenge. Mr. Mitch Tyner Page 2 August 6, 2014
Obviously, it is not possible for our committee of 52 volunteers to attempt to engage in such an
exercise in a prudent manner in one day. In fact, given the extraordinary relief requested of
overturning a United States Senate primary in which over 360,000 Mississippians cast votes,
the only way to ensure the integrity of the election process and provide a prudent review of this
matter is in a court of law. The public judicial process will protect the rights of the voters as well
as both candidates, and a proper decision will be made on behalf of our Party and our State.
It’s a lot of legalese, but essentially the letter is turning McDaniel’s request down.
LINK: Related Article: /mcdaniel-challenge-run/
