Lisa Sánchez asked judge to stop Boise City Council from acting. What the judge decided
An Ada County judge has denied the request of former City Council Member Lisa Sánchez to force the City Council to stop functioning until she is returned to her seat.
On Monday, 4th Judicial District Judge Derrick O’Neill denied Sánchez’s request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the merits of key arguments that would have allowed an injunction were still in dispute.
A preliminary injunction is a request for a court to require that something happen — or not happen — while the issues in dispute make their way through court. Under Idaho law, such an injunction can be issued if a judge finds a plaintiff very likely to succeed in the case, and if the plaintiff will suffer “irreparable harm” if the request is not granted.
In this case, O’Neill ruled that Sánchez had not proven she is substantially likely to win her case and denied the request before considering whether she would suffer irreparable harm.
When Sánchez moved to an apartment she didn’t realize was outside the boundary of her district in January, Boise city lawyers concluded that, under Idaho law, she had vacated her seat. Last month, Mayor Lauren McLean appointed Latonia Haney Keith to fill the District 3 seat, which covers the North End and Northwest Boise. Sánchez applied to be appointed but was not selected.
Sánchez followed up on the decision days later with a lawsuit, and in an expedited proceeding her attorney, Wendy Olson, asked the court to prevent “the City of Boise from conducting business without plaintiff Sánchez and ordering the City of Boise to reinstate plaintiff Sánchez to the City Council position from which she was unlawfully removed.”
To issue an injunction, the court has to find a plaintiff “substantially likely” to prevail on their claims, according to the ruling. At issue in this request were the circumstances under which Sánchez lost her seat and the interpretation of a state law explaining how elected vacancies occur.
At a hearing on April 26, Olson argued that the city removed Sánchez, did not have the right to do so, and would have needed to initiate some kind of proceeding to determine that she had lost her seat. An attorney for the city, Daniel Williams, has countered that the statute governing how seats are vacated “is a self-executing state statute requiring nothing more than (Sánchez’s) act of moving outside of District 3,” according to O’Neill’s ruling.
In his ruling, O’Neill wrote, “Based on the language of the statute and the absence of any provisions detailing the additional removal proceedings that would be required upon vacancy, it cannot be said that (Sánchez) is clearly entitled to the relief sought or substantially likely to prevail on her claims.”
O’Neill wrote that whether the statute applies to this case “is still undetermined,” and that his decision “is not rendering any opinion as to whether (Sánchez) is entitled to relief on her remaining claims.”
Sánchez has also argued that the city’s actions deprived her of due process and that she has suffered harm from losing her income, health insurance and retirement benefits. Sánchez was elected to a second term in 2021 and has indicated she plans to run for a council seat again in November.
“While Ms. Sánchez is disappointed that the court did not grant preliminary injunctive relief, she also noted that the court made clear that its decision is not dispositive,” Olson told the Idaho Statesman in an emailed statement. “At this point, the court has decided neither that Ms. Sánchez is right on the law nor that the city of Boise is right on the law.”
A spokesperson for McLean, Maria Weeg, declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Editor’s note: Wendy Olson also represents a group of media outlets, including the Idaho Statesman, in a case challenging the gag order in the Bryan Kohberger case.
This story was originally published May 1, 2023 at 3:12 PM.
