On January 27, the Alabama House Constitution and Elections Committee defeated HB 142 by a vote of 6-5. See here. The sponsor of the bill is Representative Cam Ward (R-Alabaster). The link points to his blog. He will ask for reconsideration.
HB 142 would have lowered the independent candidate petition (for office other than president) from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5%. Alabama is the only state in which all routes to the ballot for non-major party candidates, for statewide office other than president, are worse than 2% of the last vote cast. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
A lawsuit against the Alabama 3% requirement, for U.S. House, is currently pending in the 11th circuit. All the briefs are in. It is not yet determined whether the 11th circuit will ask for oral argument. The basis for the lawsuit is that in at least one particular U.S. House district, the 3% formula requires an independent candidate for U.S. House to obtain more signatures than are needed for an independent presidential candidate. The U.S. District Court had upheld that, even though twice the U.S. Supreme Court has said that states may not require more signatures for an office in just part of a state, than for a statewide office. The U.S. District Court said the U.S. Supreme Court precedent only applies if the office within just part of the state is a municipal office. The U.S. District Court didn’t even mention the other U.S. Supreme Court precedent, which concerned comparing county office to statewide office.
If the US Constitution prohibits states from adding qualifications for US Representatives beyond those in the Constitution itself, who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pushed the idea that petitioning for permission to seek election to Congress was NOT an added qualification? I suspect the Progressives.
Since US Senators are no longer elected by state legislatures, but directly by the people then the same prohibition would logically apply to them as well.
Since the President is not elected directly, then it is conceivable the US Constitutional prohibition may not apply to Presidential Electors, so petitioning requirements may be constitutional. However, since electors are apportioned largely on the basis of population, then ‘one person/one vote’ proportionality would argue that such petitioning qualifications, if any, for Presidential Electors must also be uniform among the states.
What is the rational basis for setting a uniform number of petition signatures for Presidential Electors? I cannot find any rational basis for any number above zero – the same number as for US Representatives and US Senators.
The same argument applies to filing fees – as an unconstitutional qualification – for national candidates.
For candidates for state offices what is the rational basis for petitions and filing fees? I don’t know of any.
How does the imposition of restrictions of the amount of money that candidates’ can raise and spend not also constitute a “qualification” not in the US Constitution?
If the compulsory secret or anonymous ballot is held constitutional, then why is compulsory anonymous – but unlimited – candidate financing not also constitutional?
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that states can’t add to the constitutional qualifications. The US Supreme Court hadn’t settled that issue, until 1995. The 1995 case struck down term limits laws for Congress.
In 1974, in Storer v Brown, the US Supreme Court rejected the idea that ballot access laws are additional qualifications. However, at that time, the Court hadn’t even decided whether or not states can add to the qualifications, so the Storer language is outdated and was never very meaningful. The Storer decision put its remark in a short footnote.