Opinion ID: 835816
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: mandamus is an appropriate remedy

Text: Plaintiffs assert that mandamus is not an appropriate remedy in the circumstances. We disagree. The Secretary of State has a strong interest in a prompt resolution through this mandamus proceeding of plaintiffs' challenge to his authority to reject the certificate of nomination by individual electors filed by the Nader campaign. The petition seeks the determination of questions of law regarding the authority of the Secretary of State, not to control discretionary determinations by the trial court, as plaintiffs argue. Without a prompt resolution of plaintiffs' challenge to the authority of the Secretary of State, the state's strong interest in the efficient administration of the November 2, 2004, general election will suffer irreparable injury. Under the circumstances, the Secretary of State's right to appeal from the trial court's judgment provides a remedy at law that is chimerical at best. Plaintiffs further argue that this mandamus proceeding improperly seeks to resolve unadjudicated questions of fact. They contend, for example, that the Secretary of State was estopped from requiring the submission of sequentially numbered signature sheets to each county by reason of advice that the appropriate person in the Secretary of State's office had given to the Nader campaign. Additionally, plaintiffs argue that they asserted in the trial court the factual claim that the circulator signatures on a large number of rejected signature sheets were indeed authentic signatures. Again, we disagree. Plaintiffs challenged several actions of the Secretary of State, including the application of administrative rules, the promulgation and application of written instructions and directives, and the determination that the Nader campaign had filed insufficient elector signatures to support a certificate of nomination by individual electors. Properly viewed, the issues in this mandamus proceeding concern a single legal question: Did Oregon law authorize the Secretary of State to take the actions that he took at the time he acted? As that question makes clear, the facts that are most pertinent to that inquiry are those that responsible elections officials knew or should have known when they acted. We turn now to the legal question stated above.