Mail Tribune News - Cooley lawsuit may get tossed
Document text
Cooley lawsuit may get tossed The Associated Press SALEM -- A federal magistrate on Thursday recommended that a lawsuit filed by former U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley challenging the results of last November's general election be thrown out. U.S. Magistrate Dennis Hubel's findings will be referred to a United States district judge for approval or rejection. Cooley sued after Secretary of State Phil Keisling refused to put him on the general election ballot, citing Oregon's so-called sore loser law. The law prohibits a candidate who loses a major-party primary nomination from filing as a candidate in another party in the next general election. Cooley had lost the Republican primary for the 2nd District seat last May and in the summer was nominated to represent the Reform Party. In his findings, Hubel said Oregon has an interest in avoiding intra-party feuding by barring losing primary candidates from running again in the general election. The general election, he said, should be reserved for those candidates with broad-based support. The judge cited a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a similar California law. The nation's top court barred independent candidates from the general election if the candidate was affiliated with a political party in the most recent primary election. Cooley had argued that in removing his name from the ballot, Keisling was limiting the Reform Party's right to run any candidate it chose in a general election. Hubel disagreed, saying the law does not deprive the Reform Party of nominating any candidate but would only bar individuals who had unsuccessfully sought a nomination from another party in the primary. Several attempts to reach Cooley for comment were unsuccessful. A former state senator, Cooley was elected to Congress in 1994 but quit under pressure from the Republican Party during his 1996 re-election campaign amid reports he had lied about serving in the Korean War. He later was convicted of lying in the state Voters' Pamphlet about his military record. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA