ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
A PATRICK COUNTY teacher may have made history over the state's ballot-access deadlines.
The phone message for the reporter was brief.
"Hey, this is Tex Wood," it started. "I just whipped 'em in federal court."
George "Tex" Wood, a Patrick County teacher who wants to run for the U.S. Senate, may have made history by winning a judge's ruling that will force Virginia to change its ballot-access deadlines.
Wood, who has no legal training, filed a lawsuit with his own money, and has served as his own lawyer while pushing the case forward for nearly two years.
Richard Winger, who edits a San Francisco-based publication called Ballot Access News, said he knows of no one anywhere in the nation who's represented himself and won a significant ballot-access lawsuit. He said some people have won after starting out on their own - but only after picking up legal help from the American Civil Liberties Union or some other group.
Wood sued in July 1994 after he ran out of time to collect enough voter signatures to get on the ballot in the Senate race that was won by Democrat Charles Robb.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser quickly threw out Wood's case. But Wood went over Kiser's head to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, which ruled Wood had not been given enough time to prepare his response to the state's legal briefs. The appeals court told Kiser to give the case a second look.
Wood went on to start seeking signatures to get on this fall's ballot for the state's other Senate seat, held by Republican John Warner.
Kiser ruled in Wood's favor May 20, but Wood didn't find out about his victory until he checked his post office box Wednesday.
Wood said the attorney general's office "did an outstanding job of defending the indefensible. Those boys and girls know what they're doing."
He said he had lots of help from Winger and others interested in his cause. If you have folks who can point you in the right direction, Wood said, "a reasonably educated individual who has reasonably good luck" can figure out the legal ins-and-outs.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office said the state plans to appeal.
Wood said that if the state wins in the Fourth Circuit, he'll just take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I'll just carry it on up," he said. "Hell, my leg ain't broke."
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. George ``Tex'' Wood logged manyby CNBmiles in an effort to get on the ballot as an independent candidate
for the U.S. Senate. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS