The Plan He Wanted Might Not Have an Election to Attach To

Sandris has spent the cycle asking for a published transition plan before the corridor votes. We asked him what happens to that position if a plain reading of §15.5.a(1) means the corridor was never going to vote at all.

We put this paper's reporting to him directly — that the Elections Panel is preparing a referendum four weeks out on a certification that a plain reading of §15.5.a(1) may have already superseded, and that nobody has said so out loud. Most candidates asked to react to a jurisdictional argument change the subject. Sandris did not.

"If the provision already applies, the honest thing is to say the provision already applies. I don't get to want a referendum into existing because I built a position around one. Neither does anyone else."

That is, characteristically, not a position most of the field would take. A transition plan for two court seats has been Sandris's most specific policy contribution all cycle — the thing that distinguished him from three candidates who mostly reacted to Monitor findings rather than answered them. If the referendum §15.5.a(1) is arguably blocking never happens, the plan he built has no vote left to attach to.

What He Would Not Concede

Asked whether that made his signature position obsolete, Sandris drew a distinction we think is worth reporting precisely rather than summarizing.

"The plan was never really about the referendum. It was about two judges who don't know what happens to their docket. That question doesn't go away because the vote does. If there's a Convention instead of a referendum, whoever sits on it is going to need the same answer I was asking for. I'd rather have written it once and had it be useful twice than written it for an audience that stops existing."

Whether that reframing survives contact with actual voters — who signed up to evaluate a candidate's handling of a corridor merger, not a hypothetical Convention — is not something this paper can answer today.

The Other Three

We put the same question to the other three campaigns. Carrow's office called it "premature" and declined further comment. Vael's office did not respond by deadline. Mak's office said the referendum "is proceeding as scheduled and this paper should ask the Elections Panel, not the candidates" — which is true, and does not answer the question either.

Sandris remains the only candidate in this race willing to treat a jurisdictional argument as something other than someone else's problem.