On September 15, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth ruled against the challenge to Bob Barr’s substitution paperwork. The challenge had been filed by a Republican Party official in Cumberland County, and he had been represented by several attorneys, including one who regularly handles legal business for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. The decision is seven pages.
The decision says, “In nominating Etzel prior to the Libertarian National Convention and substituting Barr thereafter, the Party and LPPa merely complied with the Party’s election process as it has been established in Pennsylvania since 1996 when, nationally, the Party moved its convention from a date prior to the legal date for circulation of Pennsylvania nomination papers to a subsequent date. Since then, given the time constraints, the Party and LPPa have deemed it necessary to circulate nomination papers prior to their national convention in order to take full and fair advantage of the time period allotted under Pennsylvania’s Election Code to secure the necessary signatures in support of their candidate…the Party simply took reasonable action to abide by the Election Code while furthering its legitimate interest.”
Good news for the LP at last.
Go Bob Barr!
Richard,
What about Connecticut? When will we know?
Hmm. I am some what annoyed that Barr decided not show up to the joint press release with the others.
If Independent and minor party candidates or supporters cannot stand next to each other, let alone work together on electoral reform — through a professional interest group — nothing is going to change.
People have got to get it through their heads. We need something like the NRA or the NAACP or the AARP for election law reform.
My small contribution is a proposed Constitutional Amendment for people to pick at. I might try and see if someone in the House or Senate will introduce it.
http://www.geocities.com/edwardtjbrown/politicallibertyamendment.htm
ETJB, whom ever you are, I could not agree more. P2008 should have been a P1992 style banner year, instead the Democans and Republicrats are chuckling all the way to November 4th! —Don Lake
I agree with ET JB about pushing for a ballot access amendment, but much of his language is duplicative of other parts of the constitution, while he does not address what is needed, which is firm language that voting rights require the right to form political parties, have access to the ballot for both parties and independent candidates, and that the right to parties to form coalitions must not be abridged by election law (for example in Pennsylvania, we are a fusion state, except that a candidate may only file one petitition, making it extremely difficult to appear on the lines of multiple parties). The amendment needs to set a standard measure of what constitutes an unreasonable ballot access requirement.
At least it appears the judge got it right this time.
Great news! Thanks to everyone who helped defend Bob Barr and the LPPA in this lawsuit!
Finally some good news for Barr. Now I only wish someone would tell me about New Hampshire and Massachussetts. I wish someone would tell me why we haven’t sued to remove mcCain and Obama from Texas
It would be futile to sue Texas, because there are 4 Texas Supreme Court decisions that say deadlines are not to be strictly enforced. Now if only the Boston Tea Party, or the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or the Reform Party, would file for write-in status, to see if Texas would treat them leniently also! The write-in filing deadline was August 26 and those parties didn’t file for write-in status for president.
I have always held the opinion that we need to throw out the entire “party” system – while obviously there is freedom to associate with others and form whatever groups one likes, this shouldn’t be part of our legal structure.
As far as I’m concerned a political party is essentially a club, just like the Masons, or Elks, or the NRA, or even the “National Geographic Society” etc…
Why should a person who is a member of one club be treated differently under the law than a person who is a member of a different club or treated yet a third way if not a member of any club?
Why should the taxpayers be hit with a big bill for helping the members of one club (but not other clubs) decide which one of their members is most popular?
I would like to see a system where all candidates have the same procedure for ballot access, and appear on the same ballot, with some form of “runoff” procedure, whether it be multiple elections, or some form of preference voting (preferably the latter for cost and convenience reasons)
Each candidate should also get a certain very limited amount of space (say 40 characters?) to make any statement that he might think would get people to vote for him – including possibly the endorsement of some club that decided who to endorse by it’s own rules and at it’s own expense…. (Un-endorsed candidates being kept from falsely claiming an endorsement by copyright/trademark restrictions)
Presumably the different clubs might organize to help their members meet the ballot access requirements, and advertise for their endorsed candidates, etc. but that should be a private function. They might also have a rule saying that club members running without the club’s endorsement get thrown out of the club, but again that would be an internal matter for the club to decide and enforce…
I think that besides saving tax dollars, this would get us back to a system that is closer to what the authors of the Constitution intended, and implied in their work – note that there is NO mention of political parties in the Constitution, and the original had the Pres. candidates running as individuals w/ the 2nd place finisher getting the VP slot… (IMHO a good check on the system)
ART
It should be noted that what the court actually holds is that the plaintiff’s failure to serve the defendants left the court without jurisdiction. Without jurisdiction, the part of the opinion that the post quotes is little more than a judicial op/ed.
Richard,
I have been able to view I think three Texas decisions and in all three cases the court ruled that the missed deadlines was not the fault of the candidate but of mistakes their respective party made. In these cases the courts felt that the candidate shouldn’t be punished because of the party officials doing their jobs poorly. If the party officials had performed reasonably well the candidates would have had time to fix the problems. One consistent point seems to have been that the candidates had tried to turn in their petitions and paperwork in not only a timely manner but in these cases early. By the candidates turning in their work early the party officials had time to review and point out problems. The party failed to do so. If the candidates had not turned the work in early and the party hadn’t time to review the documents I don’t believe the court would have allowed them on the ballot. In one case the court warned candidates and political parties that statutory deadlines are serious.
In the Barr V McCain, Obama and Texas SOS case the Parties and the Candidates made no attempt to comply with the statutory deadline as specified by Texas Election Law and in fact scheduled their convention such that they had no chance of meeting the requirements of the law.
I am wondering how the Texas supreme court which stated “Third, it does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines” is going to come back and state “oh never mind political parties can ignore statutory deadlines”.
I think the real problem that Barr has is his waiting three weeks leaving only 4 days before Texas had planned to mail their overseas ballots.
By the way I looked at California law and California requires notification from the democrats and republicans 78 days before the election. But California doesn’t actually require the party to have nominated their candidate they just require that the SOS be informed whom the candidate given that they have enough delegates such that they will be nominated.