The Supreme Court now frequently holds its October oral arguments away from its San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Sacramento courtrooms, in what the court calls special outreach sessions. This year, the outreach session was scheduled for Redding this coming Wednesday. Two days ago, however, the court moved the arguments back to San Francisco.
A court news release said only — and cryptically — that the change was “due to unforeseen circumstances.” Here’s some speculation about what those “unforeseen circumstances” might be.
There’s an election controversy going on in Shasta County, of which Redding is the County seat.
Ryan Sabalow wrote for CalMatters on September 22 that “FBI agents paid a visit to Shasta County last week after Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis claimed ballots looked, felt and smelled funny as workers were counting them in the June primary, an election he happened to lose.”
The article says Curtis is “a longtime conspiracy theorist and election denier.” Hailey Branson-Potts wrote in the Los Angeles Times that he recently unsuccessfully sought to hire a former Colorado elections official who had been imprisoned for tampering with voting machines.
The article further reported that “[t]he FBI’s inspection came after other Shasta County officials also urged the federal and state government to investigate, but for a different reason: To prove Curtis’ claims about widespread election fraud wrong.” In August, a County press release said Curtis had made “unproven allegations regarding the conduct of his employees and unproven statements regarding the election he administered and certified.” The County called Curtis’s claims “frivolous” and asserted his failures in his job are “undermining the very principles he was appointed to uphold,” principles the County said were “to enhance transparency, strengthen election integrity, and restore trust in the democratic process.”
Meanwhile, Mike Mangas wrote on Wednesday for KRCR TV that Curtis had planned to destroy ballots from the election, but the plans were halted because “Curtis said some boxes also contained records tied to a pending California Public Records Act (PRA) request.”
See also Branson-Potts in the Los Angeles Times: “California county’s election drama worsens as official locks up contested ballots.”
Just eight days ago, the Supreme Court issued two opinions putting a stop to what it called “a substantial risk to election integrity.” It held the Riverside County Sheriff had broken the law when he seized over 600,000 cast ballots and again when he then disregarded California Attorney General’s direction to preserve the ballots and pause his investigation. The opinions have attracted national attention.
The court’s oral arguments were going to be held at a school just one mile from the Shasta County registrar of voters’ office. It’s possible the court felt uncomfortable being geographically close to an election fight so soon after ruling on a similar dispute.
Supreme Court spokespersons did not respond to a request for comment on any connection between the Shasta County election ruckus and the change in the October argument location.
