During 2007, there were four federal lawsuits filed by various Reform Party activists against other Reform Party activists, over who the true officers of the party were. One of these four decisions has now been reported. When a U.S. District Court decision is “reported”, that means it has been published in the Federal Supplement. The Federal Supplement is published in many, many volumes by the West Lawbook Publishing Company. The Federal Supplement is where U.S. District Court decisions of importance are printed. The Federal Supplement is in every U.S. law library.

The four 2007 federal cases in which Reform Party activists sued each other had been filed in California, West Virginia, Florida, and Mississippi. The Mississippi decision, unlike the others, is now reported. It is Huffmaster v Foster, 565 F.Supp.2d 693 (S.D.Miss. 2008). Thomas Huffmaster, a Mississippi Reform Party activist, had sued members of the “Dallas” faction, alleging that he had been kept from being nominated as a Reform Party candidate for Congress in 2006 by Ted Weill, and that Weill had barred his nomination because Huffmaster was a friend of Shawn O’Hara. U.S. District Court Judge Tom Lee, a Reagan appointee, ruled that Huffmaster’s claims that barriers to his candidacy constituted a violation of the federal RICO (“Racketeer Influenced Organization) Statute do not have merit. Judge Lee also said that Huffmaster’s claims concerning the national Reform Party fail because Huffmaster lacks standing.

The decision describes some of the other, more significant federal intra-party Reform Party decisions, including the Tallahassee federal jury trial in the case called Reform Party of the U.S. v O’Hara. Since that Florida decision is not reported, the Mississippi decision (which is now reported) will provide historians of the Reform Party with an easy-to-find account of all the federal Reform Party internal disputes.