ODDLY ENOUGH

July 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

ODDLY ENOUGH

Wis. candidate can’t use controversial description

MADISON, Wis.

A legislative candidate from Wisconsin can’t use a profane, racially charged phrase to describe herself on the ballot, an election oversight board decided Wednesday.

Ieshuh Griffin, an independent running for a downtown Milwaukee seat in the state Assembly, wants to u0se the phrase, “NOT the ‘white man’s b----.’”

But the state’s Government Accountability Board voted to bar that wording, agreeing with a staff recommendation that it is pejorative and therefore not allowed.

State law allows independent candidates to have five words describing themselves placed after their names on the ballot as long as it’s not pejorative, profane, discriminatory or includes an obscene word or phrase.

Griffin, who is black, argued her case to the five white, retired judges on the board that regulates elections. She said the phrase was protected free speech.

Board member Thomas Cane, a retired state appeals court judge, said he didn’t find the wording to be “particularly offensive.”

Fellow board member Thomas Barland, who spent 33 years as a circuit court judge in Eau Claire, agreed. “She says a lot in five words,” he said. “It wasn’t pornographic; it wasn’t obscene; and I didn’t interpret it as racial.”

Judge Gordon Myse, the board chairman, cast the third vote in favor of Griffin. “Isn’t she saying, ‘I’m not under the white man’s direction? I’m independent of that.’ Isn’t that what she’s saying?” Myse said.

Roxanne Dunlap, a white woman from Sussex, spoke up in the middle of the meeting, saying she was offended by the statement. She said if a white candidate wanted to have the statement “not the black man’s b----” put on the ballot, it would be soundly rejected.

Griffin said her statement wasn’t directed at any one individual but the government as a whole. The b-word was referring to a female dog that rolls over, she said.

The Assembly district she hopes to represent is represented by Democrat Annette Polly Williams, who is retiring.

Utah man in doghouse for writing to wife’s cat

SALT LAKE CITY

A Utah man is accused of violating a protective order because he allegedly sent letters to his estranged wife’s cat.

Authorities say 32-year-old Ronald Charles Dallas, of South Salt Lake, was ordered not to contact his wife, who is the alleged victim in a domestic violence case against him.

Prosecutors allege Dallas mailed 11 letters from jail that were addressed to her cat, Molly Judge, and a neighbor but were intended for his wife. They say the letters asked her not to testify against him. Dallas now faces 11 counts of violation of a protective order and two counts of tampering with a witness.

Associated Press