The U.S. Supreme Court held a conference on Friday morning, November 14. One of the cases considered at the conference is Ohio v Citizens for Tax Reform, 08-570. The issue is whether the U.S. Constitution protects the right of people to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. The lower court had ruled that Ohio’s ban on paying people on a per-signature basis is unconstitutional, and Ohio had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the lower court.

Normally, when the Court holds a conference on a Friday, it doesn’t release any news about that conference until the following Monday. But for the conference of November 14, the Court did announce that it would take five particular other cases. Probably the Court released the news early so as to give the parties on both sides in those five particular cases more time to start working on the next set of briefs.

Since the Court (on November 14) did not release the list of cases it decided not to hear, one cannot be certain that the Court has rejected Ohio’s appeal. The list of cases that were rejected won’t be released until Monday, November 17. But it seems very likely that almost all cases considered at the Conference of November 14 that aren’t on today’s list will be on the rejection list, when the rejection list is released on November 17.

On November 14, the Court did accept two other election-law related cases. One is Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 08-205. The Court seemed eager to accept that case. It did so even though the last brief (on whether the Court should hear the case) had been filed only five days ago. The issue is whether federal campaign finance laws are constitutional, if they are applied to interfere with advertising a movie (intended for release in movie theaters) that deals with federal candidates during the months before an election. The lower court had ruled that the movie, since it is financed by a corporation and since it discussed Hillary Clinton, could not be advertised on TV or radio during the primary season of 2008, since Clinton was a candidate during the primary season.

The other case the Court accepted is Caperton v A.T. Massey Coal Company, 08-22. The issue is whether the U.S. Constitution protects someone who is involved in a lawsuit, when that person’s opponent in the court case had made very large campaign donations to a judge who is hearing the case. The case arose in West Virginia, where the judge in question had refused to recuse himself even though the Massey Coal Company had made very large donations to his campaign for election to the West Virginia Supreme Court. This case had been considered by the U.S. Supreme Court at conferences on October 10, October 17, October 31, November 7, and November 14. The Court has thus given the appearance that it had a difficult time making up its mind whether it wants to hear this case. The case, when decided, may have major implications for Ralph Nader’s case over whether he must pay $80,000 to the people who challenged his Pennsylvania petition in 2004. There were close ties between some members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the people who challenged Nader’s petitions, but no member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recused himself or herself when Nader’s case was argued.