On November 7, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether or not to hear Ohio v Citizens for Tax Reform, 08-151. However, on November 10, the Court did not issue any order in that case. This means the Court hasn’t decided yet whether to hear the Ohio case. The issue is whether states may ban the practice of paying petition circulators on a per-signature basis. In this particular case, the 6th Circuit had invalidated Ohio’s law, based on substantial evidence that a ban on paying circulators on a per-signature basis makes petitioning significantly more expensive.
The Court’s next conference is November 14, and the next one after that is November 25.
Watch Breyer.
Breyer is always against free elections and third parties. It was the deal he made to get appointed to the SCOTUS.
I don’t know why commenter #1 believes that. In 2004, Justice Breyer was the only U.S. Supreme Court Justice who wanted to hear any ballot access case appeal. He voted to hear Nader’s Oregon case; no other justice wanted to hear it. None of the other ballot access cases set before the Court in 2004 got any votes at all.
It is true the Breyer cast an unfavorable vote on ballot access when he was a Judge in the First Circuit, in the Maine Libertarian ballot case. He voted not to grant injunctive relief, but so did the other two judges in that case.
How about creating a chart of all the ballot access cases before the SCOTUS in the last 10 or 20 years with the votes of each Justice.
Accepting the appeal by the State of Ohio, which lost the Ohio case, for example, would be a vote against ballot access.
I have had charts like that in the printed Ballot Access News, not only for the U.S. Supreme Court, but for all federal judges. There is a lot of content in the printed newsletter that does not appear in this blog.
The online Ballot Access is an absolutely invaluable tool.
There is information here that is vital.
But the printed version is even more so.
Everyone who cares about this issue, who cares about the much vaunted “democracy” we’re supposed to have, really ought to subscribe to the printed version.
Richard,
Perhaps I can order a complete, historical, library bound set of Ballot Access News from you sometime.
What’s the price for that?