Board of Education Says Goodbye as Activists Fight for Chance to Save It

Earlier in the day, Mary Spencer, who has led the effort to force a citywide referendum on the takeover, asked a Superior Court judge to intervene.

Spencer, a grandmother of two D.C. schoolchildren, and the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics had been on the same side for a time after the elections board ruled that the school takeover legislation passed by the D.C. Council was a valid subject for a referendum.

But the elections board reversed itself this week and declared that the mayor's school takeover cannot be the subject of a referendum.

The D.C. attorney general's office was contesting the elections board's original decision and was to have lined up against Spencer and the board yesterday in D.C. Superior Court. But after President Bush signed into effect the relevant change in the District's charter, the elections board's lawyers said the school takeover was no longer a valid subject for a referendum and the court hearing before Judge Lynn Leibovitz was canceled.

But yesterday, after Spencer filed a new challenge, a hearing was convened on short notice, with attorneys for the elections board lined up with attorneys for the District government to argue that the board should not be ordered to issue the official petition forms.

With the change in the charter due to take effect Tuesday, organizers of the referendum effort would need to obtain the signatures of 20,000 registered voters by the end of the day Monday. Collecting that many signatures would have been a considerable feat had the process begun a few days ago. With each day that passes, the task becomes even more daunting, Spencer's attorney told the judge in urging her to act quickly.

The attorney, Matthew S. Watson, argued that the elections board had made its decision to allow the referendum and that the process needed to be allowed to move forward.

But attorneys for the District and for the board argued that the president's signing of the law was an intervening factor that obligated the board to reverse its position.