As most regular readers are aware, on July 10, the Pennsylvania Attorney General indicted a dozen state employees for doing partisan political work on government time, with government computers and other resources. Some of that partisan political work was participating in the challenge to Ralph Nader’s 2004 Pennsylvania petition, and also the challenge to the Green Party’s 2006 petition.

Nader then asked the Pennsylvania Commonwealth to re-open the matter of whether they should each be required to pay approximately $80,000 to the people who challenged their petitions. The justification for the re-opening was that the challengers had acted corruptly. On August 29, Judge Bonnie Leadbetter issued an order, requiring the challengers to Nader’s petition to respond to Nader’s request for a reopening.

The reason Nader has still not paid the $80,000 is that his bank is in the District of Columbia, and the D.C. Superior Court has never agreed to let the 2004 challengers seize Nader’s bank account. The D.C. court hasn’t denied the request either; it simply hasn’t acted. On August 22, Nader’s attorneys notified the D.C. Superior Court of the new activity in the Pennsylvania court.

The Green Party has not asked the Commonwealth Court to re-open the matter of its $80,000 problem for 2006. Instead the Green Party went to the State Supreme Court. There is no response to that request so far.