On February 26, a group of petitioners filed this opening brief in the Third Circuit in Benezet Consulting v Boockvar, 20-2976. The case concerns Pennsylvania’s ban on out-of-state circulators for primary petitions. The U.S. District Court had enjoined the law, but only as to the 2020 election, and only for the particular plaintiffs. The Third Circuit will be asked to rule that the order should extend to every future out-of-state circulator of primary petitions.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
I don’t see a rational basis for banning out of state petitioners.
I don’t see a rational basis to allow out of staters to influence a states selection of leaders and laws. It would be like letting out of staters run for office or vote in that states election. How many people would even sign the petitions if they knew they were talking to an out of state paid mercenary and not a local volunteer? I bet way fewer. Make them wear a big sign saying what city and state their from and how much they get per signature, see what happens.
An out of stater can run for US Senate.
If their a serious candidate for senate that will be amply discussed in the media, debates and their opponents ads. So lets apply that to signature harvesting. I like the big sign idea. Lets also mandate a verbal statement.
“Hi, I’m Jaquarius Chomoe from Kalamazoo, Michigan and if you sign my petition to make it legal to sell dope to your kids I get 2.75 plus if 100 people a day sign I also get a motel, rental car, gas and a flight home when were done harvesting signatures. I also have a petition which makes it legal for pimps to sell your daughter and if you sign that one I get 4.25, which goes up to 5.00 if I get 500 in a week. Last but not least I get 3.50 if you sign up to help organize the looter and loiter party, which will work to raise your taxes and make it legal for bums and vagrants to camp in your cities and use your public parks as open air toilets and drug shooting galleries. If you sign you’ll help us get our candidate Sexo Fender on the ballot for governor. Would you help me out today by signing these petitions if you’re a registered voter?”
“Greetings, I’m I. D. Teef from Miami, Florida and I have some petitions to discuss with you today…”
EACH STATE IN THE UNITED *STATES* OF AMERICA IS A SOVEREIGN NATION-STATE
— REGARDLESS OF ALL THE SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF THE STATES SINCE 1789 – ESP SINCE 1933.
“Tom Jefferson on March 1, 2021 at 4:35 pm said:
I don’t see a rational basis for banning out of state petitioners.”
There isn’t one. American citizens have a right to travel throughout the 50 states and DC and the US territories. We do not give up our right to free speech when we cross into a different state or in DC or in one of the US territories. Asking a person to sign a petition is NOT the same thing as signing the petition, and it is also NOT the same thing as voting. Asking a person to sign a petition is free speech. Banning out-of-state petition circulators makes ballot access more difficult, because it limits the pool of people available to gather petition signatures. Many people work full time jobs, or have other things going on in their lives, and some have physical limitations, and are therefore unable to collect many, if any, petition signatures. Therefore, there is a need for hiring petition circulators, or calling for unpaid petition circulator volunteers, from other jurisdictions. Placing a ban on out-of-state petition circulators puts an undue burden on petition proponents, and it also violates the free speech rights of those who regularly reside outside of the state. These bans are also hypocritical, because they do not ban out-of-state campaign managers, or campaign advertisement makers, or out-of-state GOTV (Get Out The Vote) workers, or out-of-state political sign makers, or out-of-state news reporters who report on campaigns. All of these bans should be thrown out.
“Demo Rep on March 1, 2021 at 7:11 pm said:
EACH STATE IN THE UNITED *STATES* OF AMERICA IS A SOVEREIGN NATION-STATE”
If states want to ban or censor the speech of American citizens from other states they should withdraw from the union and become their own countries. If they are part of the United States of America, they are violating people’s constitutionally enumerated rights.
LOL @ the post “above from “Grant”! I have to wonder if this is really Paul trolling. Whoever it is, they obviously have some knowledge of the paid petition business. If it is Paul, he must have decided to “burn the house down” since he apparently no longer works as a petition circulator, as up until 2019, Paul was one of those traveling petition circulators.
Regardless of whether “Grant” is Paul or somebody else, the merits or demerits of any petition has NOTHING To do with whether or not the petition circulators regularly reside in a state. There are plenty of people who do reside in a state who have gathered signatures in that state where they regularly reside for issues that I thought were bad, just as plenty of state legislators introduce and vote in favor of bills that I thought were bad.
The bottom line is that American citizens do not give up their free speech rights when they enter another US state or DC or a US territory. Asking people to sign a petition is free speech. The merits or demerits of the petition, or whether or not they are being paid, has NOTHING to do with the issue. This is about FREE SPEECH.
“This is about FREE SPEECH.” I would disagree in that I believe it is more about free enterprise. Admittedly a nuanced difference, perhaps.
You have the right, to know if your massaging butt plug is made in China, or who paid for a political ad, or donated to a campaign. Likewise, you should have the right to know, if the person pitching you would live under the consequences of the legislation, amendments, or candidate being proposed. Likewise, it is useful information, if they are motivated by supporting that issue, candidate, or party, or if they are motivated by making a lot of money and jetting out as soon as the petition drive ends. You would still have the rights, of free speech, and free enterprise, with full disclosure. Only rat’s and roaches, are afraid of the light.
Reference: Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3. Implicit in the Commerce Clause is the “Dormant Commerce Clause” which refers to the prohibition against state passage of legislation that discriminates against, or excessively burdens, interstate commerce. Paid petitioners have a right to contract legitimate labor or services.
The Constitution precludes protectionist state policies that favor state citizens or businesses at the expense of non-citizens in the conduct of business (or movement of interstate goods and services) within that particular state.
In principle, the Law is not capricious. Thus, the 3rd Circuit should overturn.
“I would disagree in that I believe it is more about free enterprise. Admittedly a nuanced difference, perhaps.”
There is a free enterprise aspect to it, and I agree with that as well, but keep in mind that there are also unpaid volunteer petition circulators from out-of-state, so whether a person gets paid or not is not really the relevant point of this issue.
“Only rat’s and roaches, are afraid of the light.”
Vampires are afraid of the light as well.
“Frank Garcia on March 2, 2021 at 11:47 am said:
You have the right, to know if your massaging butt plug is made in China, or who paid for a political ad, or donated to a campaign. Likewise, you should have the right to know, if the person pitching you would live under the consequences of the legislation, amendments, or candidate being proposed. Likewise, it is useful information, if they are motivated by supporting that issue, candidate, or party, or if they are motivated by making a lot of money and jetting out as soon as the petition drive ends. You would still have the rights, of free speech, and free enterprise, with full disclosure. Only rat’s and roaches, are afraid of the light.”
People travel in and out of states all the time. If a state resident talks to a random person on a sidewalk, or at some other location, should the random person be arrested or fined if they comment on politics while in a state where they do not regularly reside? I would say no, and so would any other rational person.
American citizens do NOT give up their free speech rights when they enter another state, or DC, or US territory, from the one in which they regularly reside.
Also, saying that they don’t live with any consequences of any legislation that gets passed is not necessarily true. Say that they visit a particular state on a regular, or semi-regular, basis. Say they have other business that they do with people in this state. Your arguments are absurd.
https://youtu.be/vVlXNyHxMjw
The rights of free speech, and free enterprise, are not absolute. You are probably well within your free speech rights, to talk to someone on the bus, if they don’t ask you to leave them alone. If they say you have a nice watch, and you offer to sell it, you agree on a price, chances are no one will care. If you go up and down the aisles hawking you watch, the bus driver will probably tell you to stop, and may tell you to get off the bus. If you do the same thing all day long, day after day, the bus company will probably ban you, from their bus system. If you ask a passing woman to go out with you, you’re probably OK, as long as you take no for an answer, if the answer is no. But if you hang out on the street all day, asking hundreds of woman that walks by for a date, you may have a problem, and the police may ask you to leave. If someone knocks on you door and wants you to buy a vacuum cleaner, you may or may not want one, and you may be annoyed, but it’s not a reason to call the cops, and if you do it probably won’t make them come out, unless several people call, or they are very bored. If you have a hundred people knocking on your door all day long asking you to buy crap, contribute to their cause, or sign their petition, you may get more than a little annoyed. Or say you are a doctor on vacation, and someone has a medical emergency, everyone will applaud you, if you help that person. But if you decide you like it in that town, and open up a medical office, you may need a separate medical license from that state, and maybe even a business license from that city. Lawyers, and many other professions, need separate licenses in different states, and so on.
Point being their are common sense limits, to free speech and free enterprise. Talking to someone is OK, even if it’s about politics and you’re from out of state, but it matters how many people you talk to, and if you’re doing it for a living. If you are talking to people all day, day after day, about politics, and approaching them without being asked, its not the same as talking to one person. If you are paid to do it, it’s not the same as if you do it for free. While there will be some people who will try to start conversations about politics, with different people all day, obviously it’s different when they get paid to do it, and a company brings in a bunch of these people to hit people up all day long. Some of these people, may visit that state frequently anyway, but many of them may have never been there and may never be there again, except that they are being paid to approach strangers and try to take time out of their day, get their personal information, and ultimately change that state’s politics in some way, or try to. Is it really that hard to understand? I feel like this should be common sense?
I’m guessing the cyberpig didn’t even read the brief.
And claiming you’re Jesus is beyond the pale.
It’s Jesus Herrera, you dumbass, read you own brief’s or boxer’s, it’s not my job.
“help organize the looter and loiter party, which will work to raise your taxes and make it legal for bums and vagrants to camp in your cities and use your public parks as open air toilets and drug shooting galleries. ”
Too late! The Democrats are already on the ballot in every state!
The right to petition is protected. Said protection is traceable at least as far back as the Magna Carta. And I would argue even to the Bronze Age, as reflected in accounts of Solomon’s arbitrations.
The right of petition is a cornerstone of our present republic. Opposed to this are the partisan attempts to suppress such rights, to limit or eradicate them.
The current Pennsylvania case at bar is comparable to circumstances addressed by the 2nd Continental Congress (July 5, 1775): “Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” Without petition, wither go the law abiding People for redress?
Incidentally, this 1775 “Olive Branch Petition” states: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Aye!
Attempts to suppress the ballot by an incumbent duopoly make Republicans (in particular) but Democrats as well both unfit to be “rulers” of this free people. Anything aiding or abetting what is nothing less than an ongoing usurpation via abusive statutory power imposed upon the People is contrary to the principles of constitutional law.
All the artifices of seemingly endless hypotheticals here, or straw man arguments proffered by way of excuses, lack standing. The 3rd Circuit should overturn.
“Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.”
https://youtu.be/u_mF0DhDSlo
I think most vampires stories, say their afraid of sunlight, not necessarily lamp light. Be that as it may, if vampires are afraid of any light, that’s just more to add to the analogy. No one is saying there are no petition rights. There is a right to practice law, or medicine, if you have those licenses, in a given state. There’s a right to run a business, but many states and cities, require a business license, and sometimes a professional license. No one says you can’t have a radio or tv station, but you may need a broadcast license. There may even be certain words you can’t use on the air, and other limitations. Likewise you can publish a newspaper, yet you may need a license to run it as a business, or to peddle it for profit. There could be other restrictions, if you have foul language or naked photos in your paper, for example.
Nobody fucks with The Jesus.
https://youtu.be/lWz8NGIisMo
There’s more Jesus’s here, then in the LA phone book!
“EACH STATE IN THE UNITED *STATES* OF AMERICA IS A SOVEREIGN NATION-STATE””
Says the same guy who also says the US Senate and electoral college should be abolished because they are “gerrymanders”? Talk about talking out of both sides of your mouth….
“SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF THE STATES SINCE 1789 – ESP SINCE 1933.”
Pick one. Do you want that process to accelerate by getting rid of the electoral college and Senate or do you want to halt/reverse it?
No, he’s a sex offender with a record. He did six months in Chino for exposing himself to an eight-year-old. When he moved to Hollywood, he had to go door-to-door to tell everyone he was a pederast.
The courts in PA have already ruled that banning out of state petition circulators is unconstitutional for minor party and independent candidate petitions. This case concerns petitions for candidates for major party primaries. It is really disgusting how this case has dragged on for over 5 years now. Such prohibitions on free speech should be thrown out on all petitions. This is nothing more than the ruling establishment who controls the Democratic and Republican parties wanting to make it easier to rig their own primaries by keeping competition out so the ruling establishment choices have an even better chance than they already have of winning the primaries.
Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I’ll take it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger ’til it goes “click.”
“No one is saying there are no petition rights.” If true, then you should address your ruminations to Mr. Winger. For, as the gentleman publisher stated, “The case concerns Pennsylvania’s ban on out-of-state circulators for primary petitions.”
The Benezet Consulting vs. [Pennsylvania] has nothing to do with “licensing” which you imply, and that a “license” is available to primary petitioners in said State. The actual case contests certain parts of the PA Code, not licensure. The state code mandates a witness of the petition circulation must be an in-state resident. Benezet et al. contend that is is unconstitutional.
I agree, with respects to Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution however.
The commenter Andy mentioned the case as a matter of free speech. I do not.
Given Benezet sets forth its pecuniary interests in petitioning. Thus, the matter is more an issue of free enterprise. Further, I believe that the Benezet case may be argued under the implied “Dormant Commerce Clause”.
To those foisting contrived hypotheticals, the current PA Code being litigated in itself “forces” witnesses to be paid given the market. Thus, any pretended revulsion to mercenary petitioning due to the exchange of filthy lucre to “out-of-staters” procedurally is bankrupt of alleged principle. Unless hypocrisy is your trade.
Great version of the song from that movie:
https://youtu.be/7W-M70aFS6s
Freedom is not free.
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
https://youtu.be/CBwo2jQmb_Q
SCOTUS hacks went UNCON with 1968 ballot access case Williams v Rhodes using the 1 Amdt.
See book – Sources of Our Liberties 1959 – about Amdts 1-8.
ZERO mention that the 1 Amdt has anything to do with ***ballot access***.
NOOO ballot access stuff in 1789 since NOOO ballots — voice votes — multi-check additions by precinct / burg / county / state — no 1789 adding machines [????].
State sovereign stuff has to do with who does ballot access — INTERNAL folks — NOT OUTSIDE folks.
The speech/press stuff in 1 Amdt and later 14 Amdt is quite separate from ballot access.
Too many folks to count unable to make proper classifications of govt / political things
— like the 6 Jan 2021 Capitol invaders.
How does that square with your ideas about getting rid of the senate and electoral college because they are “gerrymanders “? Your support for state sovereignty seems pretty inconsistent.
I don’t know how it all worked in 1789, although they seemed to think the senate and electoral college were pretty important parts of their design. Nowadays politics runs on:
News and opinion journalism
Social media
Legislative lobbying
Political donations
Endorsements by individuals and groups
Printing and distributing campaign propaganda
Creating and distributing campaign stuff like bumper stickers, yard signs, t shirts, etc.
Out of staters can and do participate in all of these processes which influence any and every state’s selection of politicians and consideration of proposed laws. Do you think states can exclude out of staters from all these ways of influencing their elections and politics? If so, how would they do that?
USA SUPPOSED TO BE A LIMITED REGIME — *ACTIVE* IN WAR TIMES ONLY.
SCOTUS PERVERSIONS OF 1-8-1 GENERAL WELFARE AND 1-8-3 INTERSTATE COMMERCE ESP SINCE 1936
= STATES DE FACTO DEAD — WITH OR WITHOUT SENATE AND EC.
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PR AND APPV
TOTSOP
LIMITED U.S.A. Government Powers — FEDERALIST 1787-1788 — July 2017 — SHORT VERSION
The U.S.A. Constitution has been mystified since 1789 and especially since 1936 mainly due to “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 1) and “To regulate Commerce *** among the several States ***” (ibid, Cl. 3).
IE – THE STATES ARE ALMOST D-E-A-D — SEE U.S. CODE, TITLE 42.
Each of the States in the *United* *STATES* of America is an INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN NATION-STATE —
1776 Declaration of Independence, last paragraph.
1777 Articles of Confederation
1783 U.S.A.-British Peace Treaty
1787 U.S.A. Const. Art. VII – *establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.*
States PLURAL in all 4 documents.
The U.S.A. government is a L-I-M-I-T-E-D **FEDERAL** government for the joint benefit of the People in the States.
The Federal and State governments are separate sovereignties with separate and unequal legislative, executive and judicial powers. Tarble’s Case, 80 U.S. 397, 406 (1871); U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 524, 549-551 (1875); U.S. v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 316-318 (1978); Printz v. U.S., 521 U.S. 898, 918-922, 928 (1997); U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 607, 615, 618 (2000).
*******
Left page numbers in The Federalist edited by Jacob E. Cooke (1961) (Fed. Number-Paragraph)
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federali.txt
*******
A. Limited U.S.A. Government Powers – in General
NOT brought up in hundreds of cases.
86 14-8 In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity.
105 17-1 AN OBJECTION, of a nature different from that which has been stated and answered, in my last address, may perhaps be likewise urged against the principle of legislation for the individual citizens of America. It may be said that it would tend to render the government of the Union too powerful, and to enable it to absorb those residuary authorities, which it might be judged proper to leave with the States for local purposes. Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition. Commerce, finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds governed by that passion; and all the powers necessary to those objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in the national depository. The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It is therefore improbable that there should exist a disposition in the federal councils to usurp the powers with which they are connected; because the attempt to exercise those powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government.
197-198 31-11 (part) *** The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty. ***
199 32-2 An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.
203 32-5 The necessity of a concurrent jurisdiction in certain cases results from the division of the sovereign power; and the rule that all authorities, of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, remain with them in full vigor, is not a theoretical consequence of that division, but is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument which contains the articles of the proposed Constitution. We there find that, notwithstanding the affirmative grants of general authorities, there has been the most pointed care in those cases where it was deemed improper that the like authorities should reside in the States, to insert negative clauses prohibiting the exercise of them by the States. The tenth section of the first article consists altogether of such provisions. ***
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more next
256 39-14 But if the government be national with regard to the OPERATION of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it in relation to the EXTENT of its powers. The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government. Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature. Among communities united for particular purposes, it is vested partly in the general and partly in the municipal legislatures. In the former case, all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme; and may be controlled, directed, or abolished by it at pleasure. In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere. In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. ***
262 40-9 (part) *** We have seen that in the new government, as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction.
262 40-10 (part) The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the articles of Confederation. ***
309 45-3 Several important considerations have been touched in the course of these papers, which discountenance the supposition that the operation of the federal government will by degrees prove fatal to the State governments. The more I revolve the subject, the more fully I am persuaded that the balance is much more likely to be disturbed by the preponderancy of the last than of the first scale.
310 45-4 (part) We have seen, in all the examples of ancient and modern confederacies, the strongest tendency continually betraying itself in the members, to despoil the general government of its authorities, with a very ineffectual capacity in the latter to defend itself against the encroachments. Although, in most of these examples, the system has been so dissimilar from that under consideration as greatly to weaken any inference concerning the latter from the fate of the former, yet, as the States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty, the inference ought not to be wholly disregarded. ***
313 45-9 The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
313 45-10 The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government. The more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States.
553 82-3 (part) The principles established in a former paper [No. 31.] teach us that the States will retain all pre-existing authorities which may not be exclusively delegated to the federal head; and that this exclusive delegation can only exist in one of three cases: where an exclusive authority is, in express terms, granted to the Union; or where a particular authority is granted to the Union, and the exercise of a like authority is prohibited to the States; or where an authority is granted to the Union, with which a similar authority in the States would be utterly incompatible. ***
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Separate comments about 1-8-1 and 1-8-3.
Too many LAZY useless lawyers since 1789 in SCOTUS cases.