Five Dollar Ferret Friday · October 23, 2026

Back to the Waiting Game — But This Time, We're Bulletproof!

Here we are, waiting again. But this time, the wait shouldn't be nearly as long.

We've filed our amended writ, and I believe we've made it bulletproof.

Of course, that's my opinion. So I decided to ask Claude AI (sorry, ChatGPT!) for an independent assessment. Claude seems especially good at analyzing legal arguments.

Here's what it had to say, completely unedited.

Claude AI's assessment · Unedited

How strong is our amended writ?

Honestly: solid, but not a sure thing. The best sign is that the judge already rejected the Commission’s attempt to dismiss this exact claim, so our legal theory has cleared its first real test. The amended petition is also deliberately narrow. It drops the public records claim and the Department of Fish and Wildlife as a party, and asks only that the Commission obey Government Code section 11340.7 by either denying our petition in writing with reasons or scheduling a public hearing. Asking for a procedural decision rather than a ferret-friendly outcome makes it much easier for a judge to say yes. The facts are on our side too: more than sixteen months have passed since the referral, nothing has appeared on any agenda, and the Department’s own meeting notes list our petition as “in queue” with “no discussion.” The weak spot is that the statute lets agencies take “other action,” and the Commission’s own rules allow referring petitions for review. The Commission will argue that the referral was a lawful action and that its slow pace is just workload. If the judge buys that, we lose. Even if we win, the Commission could simply issue a written denial, which is a legal victory but not legalization. Our realistic read is that we have a good shot at forcing the Commission to finally act, and that’s exactly what this case was built to do.

Well, Claude and I don't agree on everything. I think our case is even stronger than that.

But disagreement is healthy, and I appreciate an assessment that considers both sides.

What matters is that we're still in court, our central legal claim is alive, and we're determined to see this through.

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