On December 10, two important campaign finance cert petitions were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Louisiana Republican Congressman Joseph Cao, along with the Republican National Committee, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Cao v Federal Election Commission. And the Connecticut Green Party asked that Court to hear Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, the case against Connecticut’s discriminatory law on public funding of candidates for state office.
See here for the Cao cert petition, which challenges part of the McCain-Feingold law which does not permit a political party to spend more than $5,000 to help the campaign of one its nominees, unless the party spending is completely uncoordinated with the nominee. Cao and the Republican Party argue that the limit is unconstitutional, as to campaign speech in which the party is speaking its own message. Cao argues there is a difference between party spending that advocates the party’s message (but which is coordinated with the nominee), versus a party simply paying campaign bills for its nominee. The full 5th circuit had rejected Cao’s argument by a vote of 11-5.
Here is the Green Party cert petition. The Appendix is very long, but the text of the petition itself only occupies the first 34 pages.
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Richard, has there ever been an appellate case challenging the constitutionality of state laws, like Connecticut’s, that make a formal distinction between “major” and “minor” ballot-qualified parties? The only situation where this sounds even remotely legitimate to me is when parties larger than some criterion are required (or allowed) to nominate by primary while parties smaller than the criterion are required (or allowed) to nominate by convention. And I think one could argue both sides of that.
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Thanks guys for the input, we needed that….
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1974 unanimously approved the Texas two-tier system, in which large qualified parties nominate by primary, and small qualified parties nominate by convention. The American Party had complained that it couldn’t have a primary. But the party lost on that issue.
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior stuff — except regarding percentages of the total voters at the prior election.
Way too difficult for SCOTUS party hacks to understand — with their brain dead 2 major party fixations.
— i.e. how many MOROH SCOTUS ballot access cases are there since 1968 — 42 years and counting ???