On October 9, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Haddon denied injunctive relief to Steve Kelly (independent candidate for U.S. Senate) on the grounds that since Kelly didn’t pay the filing fee, he has no standing to challenge the other ballot access laws that kept Kelly off the ballot. Kelly v Johnson, cv-08-25.
Judge Haddon appears to have overlooked a 9th circuit opinion that has a different opinion about standing. Erum v Cayetano, 881 F 2d 689 (1989) says that even voters have standing to challenge ballot access laws. The Kelly case includes a plaintiff-voter, and also, of course, Kelly himself is a voter as well as a candidate.
Kelly had filed his lawsuit in April, alleging that the new March petition deadline is unconstitutional, and also that the number of signatures needed (slightly over 10,000) is unconstitutional because the state only requires 5,000 signatures for an entire new party.
It seems Steve Kelly waited too long in his so-called bid. If Kelly had been serious and started collecting signatures before the March 20th deadline, he might have had a better case. Kelly could have challenged Max on the Democratic side or paid his filing fee with any number of qualified political parties in Montana.
This is just one more piece of evidence solidifying the fact that the judges in Montana (and pretty much everywhere else) are totally corrupt and just tyrannically make up the rules as they go along, because the legislatures (who typically are responsible for impeachment) are too busy taking federal handouts to hold the judges accountable. The judges don’t just consider themselves to be ABOVE the law–they think that they ARE the law.
As the declaration of independence states, it’s time to ABOLISH and START OVER!