On April 23, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously removed Congressman Doug Lamborn from the Republican primary ballot. He has been in Congress since the 2006 election and he intends to run for re-election. He was removed because two of his petition circulators were not residents of Colorado when they worked on his petition. The petition requires 1,000 signatures of registered Republicans.
The case is Kuhn v Williams, 2018 CO 30. The decision is 28 pages.
In 2008, the Tenth Circuit ruled in an Oklahoma case that bans on out-of-state circulators are unconstitutional. Yes on Term Limits v Savage, 550 F.3d 1024 (2008). Colorado is in the Tenth Circuit. The Colorado Supreme Court did not mention the Yes on Term Limits decision, and said it is not expressing any opinion on whether the Colorado residency requirement for circulators is constitutional or not.
Presumably Congressman Lamborn will now bring a constitutional challenge. The Colorado primaries are on June 26, so any such constitutional case will need to move very fast. There are other Republicans on the primary ballot for the 5th district. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the news.
Beat the dead political horse even more —
Each State is an independent sovereign NATION-STATE —
LAST PARA OF 1776 DOI, 1787 CONST ART VII.
Domestic politics — domestic persons only.
ALL foreigners — NONE of your biz to intervene.
No loss.
In-state witness restrictions are unconstitutional. The Colorado Supreme Court had no business is making this ruing without considering the underlying constitutionality under the federal Constitution. I suppose there may not have been a sufficient factual record to make a decision – facts (such as out-of-state circulators agreeing to submit to the jurisdiction of Colorado in any investigation of petition fraud) which may not have been developed during a normal petition challenge. Furthermore, the Congressman should have challenged the law, in federal district court, prior to circulating his petitions. This may also be a pure partisan move by Democrat judges, just like the PA Supreme Court imposing new electoral districts that favor Democrats.
Too many dumb state judges and too much partisan politics in election law decisions
Paul A. Rossi, Esq.
717.961.8978
I also have to say that the comment of “Demo Loss” (above) is pure stupidity and evinces a total lack of understanding of federal constitutional principals with respect to application of the First Amendments (adopted and agreed to by the State of Colorado) to ballot access issues.
Mr. Rossi can try and intervene in Russia, China, Iran, N. Korea politics and see what happens.
See the book —
Sources of Our Liberties ed by Richard L. Perry (1959)
long history to get USA Amdts 1-8
— just before the SCOTUS HACKS went NUTS in the 1960s.
Sometimes it takes quite a while for the HACKS to detect their errors —
See the 1938 Erie RR case — UNCONSTITUTIONAL stuff for a mere 96 years — regarding so-called *federal common law*.