St. Louis County Councilwoman Rita Heard Days takes over as chair of the council after a contentious, near two-month legal battle over a procedures’ rule on when the term, responsibilities and voting privileges of a defeated council member ends.
The dispute started during the council’s first meeting on January 5. After being defeated in the August primary by Shalonda Webb, outgoing Councilwoman Rochelle Walton Gray, 4th District, cast the deciding vote in the seven member council to retain Lisa Clancy, D-5th District as council chair and Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, as vice-chair. Councilmember Kelli Dunaway joined in that vote.
After Webb was sworn in she, along with three other members, formed the new majority in a vote on January 15, electing Days, D-1st District as chair and Councilman Mark Harder, R-7th District as vice-chair.
The next day the administration of County Executive Sam Page filed a suit in St. Louis County Circuit court seeking to overturn the appointment of Days.
The dispute centered on whether Gray, following her defeat, still had voting rights in the new year before Webb was officially sworn in.
In his ruling, St. Louis County Judge Thomas Albus said the vote to make Clancy the chair was invalid because Gray’s term had expired and that it would “violate the Missouri Constitution’s prescription against terms of more than four years.”
Webb is reported as saying that she was doing what she could to protect her majority Black constituents. “All I ever wanted to do was to serve the people I was elected to represented, she said. “Their voices were very clear, and it was my duty to stand up when I felt their voices were silenced.”
