Lawsuit Seeks To Reverse Mayor's Missed Deadline On Sales Tax Ballot Measure

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - There's more fallout from Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's missed election day deadline to file a ballot argument against a tax increase will show up blank on the ballot, with a lawsuit seeking to reverse the mistake.

Following three days of silence, with no comments from Johnson or from his staff, CBS13 pressed the mayor's campaign spokesperson for an answer about what caused the mayor's missed election deadline.

"Well, there's no black helicopter theories here," Steve Maviglio said. "It was simply a staff mistake. There were two different deadlines - one for the ballot measures, one for the charter commission. Staff thought it was the second one and we missed it."

"How did that happen given that the clerk said she had sent out emails?" CBS13's Steve Large asked.

"The clerk is absolutely right. She did do that," Maviglio said. "There was just a simple mistake made."

That mistake is now leading to a lawsuit. Craig Powell, vice president of the Sacramento Taxpayers Association, is one of the people filing it seeking to get language against the sales tax on the November ballot.

"Somebody needs to be taken out to the woodshed on this one," he said. "This is an unbelievable mistake. The first rule in politics is that when you're going to file something for an election, that you first find out what the deadline is."

The mayor volunteered to write the ballot argument against the proposed Sacramento sales tax increase weeks ago. But the deadline to submit it came while the mayor was in Hawaii.

Now his campaign manager says it was a staffer's simple mistake.

The mayor's Hawaiian holiday is now over, and he's trading in aloha for an election deadline lawsuit.

"So he's not happy about it and I'm sure somebody will get an earful when he returns," Maviglio said.