Prop 8: WaPo profiles Imperial County clerk Chuck Storey

By Adam Bink

As many of you know, Advocates for Faith & Freedom filed a petition to get back into the courtroom after the 9th Circuit ruled the deputy county clerk has no standing. From the Associated Press a few weeks ago:

In its new petition, Advocates for Faith & Freedom argues that Storey, whose official legal duties include certifying marriages, will be directly impacted by the outcome of this case.

Conservative groups are hopeful Imperial County will be able to re-enter the case because of the wording of the Jan. 4 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which denied standing to the the county’s conservative Board of Supervisors and a deputy county clerk.

In the ruling, the three-judge panel disqualified the deputy clerk on the grounds that she reported to the county clerk and as such had no power herself.

“Were Imperial County’s elected County Clerk the applicant for intervention, that argument might have merit. A County Clerk is not before us, however, so we need not, and do not, decide now whether a County Clerk would have been permitted to intervene under the circumstances present in this case,” the panel wrote.

Yesterday, The Washington Post profiled Chuck Storey, the newly elected county clerk who decided to step up and intervene in the case. And he’s not entirely supported:

EL CENTRO, Calif. — Chuck Storey ran for county clerk-recorder in a remote, desert corner of southeast California on a pledge to run a lean operation in churning out government documents like property deeds, birth certificates and marriage licenses.

“Imperial County needs a businessman,” he said during last year’s campaign.

Less than two months in office, the low-key real estate agent became something else: a very public face against gay marriage in California. Storey asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month to let him be the primary defendant in a lawsuit to uphold Proposition 8 — if a coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored the measure is removed.

Though Storey represents a county that voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage, his hometown critics say he was disingenuous when he didn’t raise his intentions earlier. Many voters thought the county’s role in the contentious issue ended Jan. 4 when the appeals court ruled its board of supervisors and deputy clerk had no legal standing to defend the ban.

Aaron Popejoy, president of the El Centro Chamber of Commerce, said the new clerk didn’t mention gay marriage, or give any hint of the legal bombshell he was about to drop, at a Rotary Club lunch Feb. 24, the day before he stepped into the lawsuit.

“I’m a little disappointed that he would open up this can of worms for us,” said Popejoy. “It’s one of those huge red flags that draw the wrong kind of attention to our community. We need to be a little more warm and welcoming.”

The Imperial Valley Press editorialized that Storey was inviting misguided stereotypes that the region is “bad or backward” — the kind of attention it got after becoming the only California county that tried to defend the marriage ban in 2009.

“We can’t think of one bit of good to come out of this effort in retrospect. It was a waste of time, energy and was damaging to the county’s reputation. And it’s happening again thanks to one self-aggrandizing man in Storey,” the newspaper wrote.

[…]

Gail Pellerin, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, knows of no other county clerks who have expressed interest in defending Proposition 8.

Imperial County supervisors say Storey is on his own. He is being represented by Advocates for Faith & Freedom at no charge.

“We were not involved in any way, shape or form,” said Supervisor Gary Wyatt, who has opposed the county’s involvement. “It’s a case of an individual who happens to be the clerk-recorder.”

The rest of the article is also worth a read. Storey has lost and is losing support, at the expense of the people he represents.