On March 20, Iowa elections officials announced that the only Democratic candidate for U.S. House, 2nd district, had failed to gather enough valid signatures to appear on the primary ballot. However, Iowa law lets a qualified party nominate someone by committee, in cases when the primary fails to produce a nominee, so no major consequences will follow. The candidate is David Loebsack, a college professor challenging the incumbent Republican member of Congress. Iowa ballot access for U.S. House candidates in primaries is severe. Candidates need signatures from 1% of that party’s last presidential or gubernatorial general election vote. Further, there is a county distribution requirement; the candidate needs 2% from each of half the counties in the district.

Iowa’s 2nd district has 15 counties, so Loebsack needed a certain number of signatures from 8 counties. But he was short in two of his needed 8 counties. He could probably have won a lawsuit against the county distribution requirement. All county distribution requirements that have been tested in court, for candidate or party ballot access, have been eliminated (except in Pennsylvania). In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court said county distribution requirements are unconstitutional for statewide petitions, since they give more power to residents of low-population counties than high-population counties. The 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision Bush v Gore reinforced the old 1969 decision. Since Bush v Gore came out, several courts have even invalidated county distribution requirements for initiatives.