Complaint seeks to boot candidate.

Byline: Brad Cain and Julia Silverman The Associated Press in The Register-Guard

SALEM - A prominent Republican lawyer filed a state elections complaint late Friday seeking to knock third-party gubernatorial contender Mary Starrett off the Nov. 7 ballot on grounds that her nomination process was legally flawed.

Starrett, a former TV talk show host and anti-abortion activist, is slated to appear on the fall ballot as the Constitution Party's nominee. Some Republicans fear that Starrett will play a spoiler's role this fall, taking votes away from GOP nominee Ron Saxton and tipping the race to incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

The complaint seeking to invalidate Starrett's candidacy was filed by Kelly Clark, a West Linn lawyer and former Republican state legislator who successfully led the legal challenge against Multnomah County's move to legalize gay marriage.

Clark contends the Constitution Party violated state election law by failing to file a notice in a general circulation newspaper publicizing the party's June 3 nominating convention in Lake Oswego where Starrett was chosen to be the party's gubernatorial nominee.

``We searched every major newspaper, and we could not find any indication that they publicized a notice of their convention,'' Clark said in an interview Friday night.

``If we are right, and the party didn't follow proper process, then Mary Starrett doesn't belong on the ballot'' he said.

Reached on the campaign trail Friday night in Eugene, Starrett said she was both flattered and furious about the complaint.

``It is kind of sad - it is kind of desperate,'' she said. ``You have a losing campaign, a losing candidate who has tried to pass himself off as conservative, and people ain't buying it. Apparently, we have the Saxton campaign running scared, which is eminently flattering. Kelly Clark would have no reason to do this, other than that he is carrying water for the Saxton campaign.''

But Felix Schein, a spokesman for Saxton, said the campaign had nothing to do with Clark's complaint.

``Neither our campaign, nor Ron has ever had a discussion about this with Kelly Clark,'' Schein said. ``In fact, we dismissed the possibility of pursuing such a complaint.'

Jack Brown, the vice chairman of the Oregon Constitution Party, said the party had sent postcards to all the members in the counties where the party was organized, and had published notices in the newspapers with the widest circulations in all of those counties.

Brown said the complaint was politically motivated, an opinion shared by Jim Ross, manager of the Kulongoski campaign.

``I think the fact that this is being pushed by such a prominent Republican shows that those around the Republican nominee for governor, Ron Saxton, are very concerned about Mary Starrett," Ross said. ``The courage of her convictions on the issues that matter most to Republicans are very likely to give Ron Saxton problems if she is on the ballot. And I am certain they would like to avoid that if at all possible.''

The complaint asks the secretary of state's office to remove Starrett's name from the ballot by Wednesday, Clark said.

If that request is denied, then a lawsuit will be filed in Marion County Circuit Court seeking to invalidate Starrett's nomination, he said.

Clark said the complaint was not filed in coordination with the Saxton campaign or Oregon Republican Party solely as a way to keep a potential spoiler candidate such as Starrett off the November ballot.

Instead, he said he filed the complaint on behalf of several individual voters, some of whom are supporters of Saxton, who were concerned about an apparent election law violation.