Court Rules Mayor's Recall Can Go Forward

The state Supreme Court ruled in Olympia that a petition drive to recall Spokane Mayor James E. West could proceed.

Shannon Sullivan, an unemployed mother, filed the petition in May, shortly after the Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane published articles detailing how West allegedly had met men online for sex.

West's lawyers argued that the petition, bearing a single abuse-of-office charge, was factually and legally insufficient. They had lost a lower court ruling.