The U.S. Supreme Court has put Ohio v Citizens for Tax Reform on its conference agenda for November 7, 2008. The decision as to whether the Court will hear the case will probably be public on November 10, 2008. The case concerns whether the Constitution protects the right of people to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. The 6th circuit had struck down Ohio’s ban on that method of payment.
Another example of a government setting up a barrier, then erecting another barrier to keep people from climbing the first.
They set high numbers for petition signatures, then act to prevent efforts to obtain those signatures.
Obviously petition signature requirements are, usually, intended to keep down the number of candidates, especially candidates from outside the inner circle.
I have proposed a serious solution: Make the number of signatures required a reasonable number, defined by a number the candidates can be expected to obtain themselves.
That is, require each candidate to circulate his or her own petition.
Then there is no need for paid (possibly outside) circulators; then the obviously pristine system remains pure and unsullied. (Pardon my sarcasm.)
Any effort by U.K. King George III in 1776 to prohibit anybody being paid to circulate copies of the 4 July 1776 Declaration of Independence (or even having the brave printer get paid) ???
Do the current ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander regimes want the R word to happen again ???
For the ignorant / clueless / brain washed graduates of the rotted public schools — ALL States have minority rule gerrymander regimes.
Half the votes in half the gerrymander districts is about 25 percent minority rule. Much worse with primary math.
The U.S.A. regime has the 3 gerrymander systems stuck over the State legislature gerrymanders — U.S.A. Reps, U.S.A. Senate and U.S.A. Prez/VP Electoral College.
MINORITY RULE 24/7 in all States and in the U.S.A. regime.
Democracy NOW via 100 percent P.R. —
Total Votes / Total Seats = Equal votes needed for each seat winner in ALL legislative bodies.
I would hope that the U.S.S.C. takes the takes and strikes down the ban.
I fail to see a legitimate State interest in banning an honest and mutually agreed upon salary for lawfully collecting petition signatures.
The often cited ‘Voter Confusion’ argument would not seem to apply, because letting circulators (sic) get paid does not — from experience — overly clutter the ballot.
Then again, there are many court cases dealing with election law and or voting rights that, frankly, never seem to make a lot of sense to me.
Paying petitioners makes as much sense as paying elected representives and judges.
Well, I think that we probably should pay elected representatives and judges a salary. Otherwise, only the wealthy would be able to stand for public office.
For the experience, I did volunteer to help out with a petitioning drive in Minnesota.
The LP MN (2000) was attempting to get someone on the ballot in the 7th Congressional District. Wilkins was his name, I think. I think I might have gotten a refund for the cost of printing out the petition themselves. Otherwise, I was just doing it mainly to see how it works.
The drive was unsuccessful, as we only had like two weeks in the summer to circulate the petition and the 7th CD is very rural and the, of coarse, college students were elsewhere and many people in the area are tourist not residents.
More recently, I tried the process again in the previous Congressional election (same district) for a Green party candidate. Same problems.
Watch Breyer.
Agreed. Justice Breyer will probably be the important ‘swing vote’.
Both the conservatives on the US Supreme Court, and the liberals on the US Supreme Court, have been good on the issue of who can circulate a petition. The 1988 decision called Meyer v Grant, striking down a complete ban on paying circulators, was unanimous. The 1999 decision called Buckley v American Constitutional Law Foundation ws 7-2, with only O’Connor and Rehnquist dissenting (and they are both gone now). That one struck down a law saying only registered voters could circulate.