On July 20, the first substantive brief was filed by the plaintiffs in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania, et al, v Cortes, 09-cv-01691, eastern district. This is the case that argues that Pennsylvania’s fees system for candidates who are removed from the ballot violates the U.S. Constitution. Here is the 12-page brief. See especially pages 3-5. UPDATE: here is the Complaint, which was filed April 21, 2009.

Although the issue of the constitutionality of the fees has been before the Pennsylvania state courts ever since early 2005, those courts never seem to have seriously dealt with the constitutional issue. Past U.S. Supreme Court precedents on filing fees, and poll taxes, establish that voters and candidates cannot be charged to pay for the administrative costs of elections.

This early brief is not a full brief on these issues, and is mainly concerned with opposing a motion to dismiss the State Supreme Court justices from the federal case. The plaintiffs are neutral on that procedural issue, but want to preserve their options in case the federal court later decides that the State Supreme Court justices are necessary defendants.

As long-time readers will already know, the fees at issue are those imposed on Ralph Nader in 2004, to pay for the costs of determining that his petition didn’t have enough signatures. A similar issue was raised when the 2006 statewide Green Party was disqualified. Each set of petitioners were charged over $80,000, not as a fine or punishment, but simply because Pennsylvania had a policy of forcing petitioning groups to pay administrative costs, if their petitions lack enough valid signatures.