On March 13 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to rehear the matter of whether the Green Party’s 2006 U.S. Senate nominee must pay approximately $80,000 to the people who challenged his petition. Apparently the State Supreme Court is willing to rethink the matter because of last year’s revelations that the people who challenged both Nader in 2004 and the Green Party in 2006 illegally used state employees and state resources to prepare their petition challenges. Thanks to Larry Otter for this news. The case is still called In re: Nomination Papers of Rogers, No. 6 MAP 2009.
This is great to hear, especially in light of the illegal revelations. Still though, I believe it’s essentially wrong to impose these costs on the Green candidates when the Democratic party machine and their legal machine are free to make these challenges and name their price.