Nielsen Merksamer, Law Firm That Always Intervenes in Lawsuits over California Top-Two, Asks U.S. Supreme Court Not to Hear Top-Two Case

Nielsen Merksamer, the California law firm that always intervenes in cases having anything to do with California’s top-two has asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Rubin v Padilla. Rubin v Padilla is the minor party lawsuit that argues the top-two system injures voting rights in the general election.

The Nielsen Merksamer brief says, in a nutshell, that voters have no right of choice in a general election other than just two candidates. It says voters who don’t like their limited choices in November should have voted in June. Of course, not all voters could have done that. Some will have attained age 18 after the primary is over, some will be newly naturalized citizens who had not been naturalized at the time of the primary, and some will have moved into California too late for the primary.

The Nielsen Merksamer brief highlights the minority of court decisions that have upheld independent candidate petition deadlines in the spring, but does not mention the far more numerous lawsuits that have struck down early deadlines. The brief also says that in Lawrence v Blackwell, an Ohio case that upheld the non-presidential independent deadline, “all candidates were subject to the same deadline.” This is factually incorrect. The Ohio law provided that primary candidates had to file 60 days before the primary, but independent candidates had to file on the day before the primary.


Comments

Nielsen Merksamer, Law Firm That Always Intervenes in Lawsuits over California Top-Two, Asks U.S. Supreme Court Not to Hear Top-Two Case — 11 Comments

  1. “The Nielsen Merksamer says, in a nutshell, that voters have no right of choice in a general election other than just two candidates.”

    That law firm should have its lawyering credentials taken away until they get a better grasp of the Constitution. And Top Two itself needs to be stopped before the corrupt Establishment finds a way to apply it nationally. It’s like the First Amendment doesn’t exist to these people, sheesh…

  2. USCA DCC 15-xxxx-OP In Re: Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee and 50 million similarly situated natural born US citizens
    USCA 5th Circuit 15-xxxx-OP In Re: Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee and 50 million similarly situated natural born US citizens
    SCOTUS 15-xxxx-OP In Re: Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee and 50 million similarly situated natural born US citizens
    jurisdiction challenge to both DCC and SCOTUS since Jan 2009 and transfer of all NBC related 2016 CINC-POTUS election matters

    cc: Donald J Trump candidate

  3. Attention GENIUS reformers in CA —

    NO primaries.
    Ballot access via EQUAL nominating petitions ONLY.
    P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.

  4. The founders knew what they had seen in Europe was not what they wanted in their new republic; i.e phony rotten borough elections
    Unfortunately they allowed Maryland colony state the premier slave market state to prevail over then New York colony state regarding the concept of natural born citizen CINC POTUS and now we here have aka Obama ISIS and Clinton Blythe systemic treason

    Indirect elections of electors with real voters and not slave belligerent illegal anchor baby based legislative districting.

  5. The intervening parties are Californians To Defend The Open
    Primary; Independent Voter Project; Abel Maldonado; and David Takashima. Nielsen Merksamer is their counsel.

    Even if there were no primaries, some voters would be nearly 22 before they were allowed to vote for a president. The solution is more frequent elections. Terms for legislators should be one year, for congressmen one year, senators two years, president two years.

  6. IF SCOTUS takes the case, then fully expect them to uphold the top 2 mess because —

    ALL candidates have an EQUAL test to get on the primary ballots and an EQUAL test (being in the top 2) to get on the general election ballots —

    even though the same old minority rule gerrymander math happens in both houses of the CA legislature and the CA USA Reps.

    Too many legal morons to count.
    That said –

    NO primaries.
    P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.

  7. The candidates do not have an equal opportunity to qualify for the general election ballot. Candidates with “Republican” or “Democratic” have a far better chance of qualifying for the November ballot because those two parties have so many more adherents than other parties. The data bears that out. There have been 119 elections in a top-two system for federal or state office, in which there were at least 2 major party members running. In all 119 instances the minor party did not qualify for the general election ballot.

  8. I mention again — IF the plaintiffs did NOT make the Elephant/Donkey label point in the original case and ALL later appeals, then they will likely LOSE.

    JUST enough BAD lawyers [i.e. MALPRACTICE] causing all sorts of LOSING cases.

  9. Bit more –
    IF SCOTUS takes the case, it would be no great surprise if 5 of 9 said that the party labels (or NON-labels) in the top 2 primary mean zero — since INDIVIDUALS are elected to public offices – not party labels or non-labels.

    i.e. all REAL third party and independent folks could claim to be a D or R in the top 2 primary and totally deny / attack ALL of the stuff connected with the D or R gangs.

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