I didn't get to speak with City Republican Chairman John Herrick before I wrote the article in Thursday's paper about Judge Steven Ferradino's ruling on the Independence Party primary. As you can read in the article, the judge ruled that petitions to force a primary are not valid. The ruling could change, depending on an action in a higher court, but a primary is not likely to happen.

Herrick did, however, leave a statement for me on my voice mail, which I received this morning. In the interests of furthering this debate, I present the statement to you here:

"We filed the lawsuit as a matter of principal. There are rules that are in place to protect the integrity of elections. The Democratic Party violated those rules. People testified that Val Keehn obtained signatures, yet her name does not appear as a witness on the petition. Peter Tulin stipulated that he did not carry out the duties of a notary in obtaining the signatures. We're please that the judge threw out the petitons that were filed on behalf of Ron Kim, Peter Martin, and Kevin Connolly. I would hope that these Democratic candidates would not condone the actions of their representatives who obtained the signatures in violation of the election law. Candiates should disavow their association with these individuals that were part of the collection of signatures on the opportunity to ballot petitoins."