In 2010, the Texas Green Party successfully petitioned for a spot on the Texas ballot, and appeared on the ballot, despite a Texas Democratic Party lawsuit that said the party’s petition drive might have been paid for by a corporation. That lawsuit was Texas Democratic Party v Texas Green Party, Travis Co., d-1-gn-10-1924. Before the 2010 election, a lower court judge had removed the party from the ballot, but the Texas Supreme Court had reversed that order and put it back on.

Now the corporation that paid for the Green Party’s petition drive has filed a federal lawsuit, pointing out that (1) Texas law already permits corporations to contribute to parties for “normal overhead, administrative and operating costs” and that petitioning for minor parties fits that description; (2) regardless of that point, it is unconstitutional for a state to forbid a corporation from making a donation to a political party. The new federal case is Take Initiative America, Inc., v Texas Democratic Party, western district, 1:11-cv-701-SS. If a trial is held in this case, it will be in September 2012. It seems likely that the state court case will now be dismissed, and the federal court lawsuit will take its place. One of the co-plaintiffs in the case is Free & Equal, Inc., the petitioning firm that collected the signatures.

Elliot Ackerman, Chief Operating Officer for Americans Elect, has this Huffington Post piece, criticizing the Electoral College. The piece also criticizes the presidential primary process used by the two major parties.

On November 2, at 9:15 a.m., U.S. District Court Judge Robert Dow will hear arguments in Stone v Neal, 1:10-cv-07727, which challenges Chicago ballot access laws that require 12,500 valid signatures for each of the three citywide offices, and which further say that voters can only sign for one candidate for each office. Chicago city offices are all non-partisan. Chicago elects its citywide officers in February of the odd years before presidential election years. If no one gets as much as 50%, there is a runoff in April.

Plaintiffs argue that if candidates for statewide office can get on a partisan primary ballot with only 5,000 signatures, it is nonsensical to require them to get 12,500 signatures to run within Chicago, which is of course only a subset of the entire state of Illinois.