A Superior Court in Maine will hold a hearing in Ralph Nader v The Maine Democratic Party, et al, on August 6.  The issue is whether the national Democratic Party and some other groups violated Nader’s right to run for office in 2004, when it coordinated challenges to his 2004 petition efforts in some two dozen states.

Nader had filed a similar case in 2007 in Virginia and also in the District of Columbia, but the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, ruled that statutes of limitations in those places prevented them from being heard.  The D.C. Circuit said Nader filed those cases a few months too late.

However, Maine has a six-year statute of limitations for cases like this, so Nader essentially re-filed in Maine state court.  The case is in Washington County, macsc-cv-2009-57.  It was filed November 30, 2009.  Maine is one of the states in which the Democrats challenged Nader’s petition in 2004.  That Democratic challenge in Maine in 2004 did not succeed, and Nader did appear on the Maine ballot in 2004.