Scotusblog is a very prestigious blog that is recognized as the leading source of news about the U.S. Supreme Court. The editors choose particularly interesting and relevant cert petitions, and describe them, and provide links to the documents in that case. The case featured on February 3 is Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. See here. Thanks to both Thomas Jones and Rick Hasen for the link.

The case concerns Connecticut’s discriminatory law on how candidates for state office get public funding. All candidates must collect a large number of $5 contributions from voters, in order to qualify. But an independent candidate, or the candidate of a new party, must also submit a petition of 20% of the voters, in order to qualify for full public funding, whereas nominees of parties that polled 20% for Governor at the last election need no signatures at all.

The U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t accepted a case for review, if the cert petition was filed by a minor party or an independent candidate, since 1996, when it accepted Chandler v Miller, 520 U.S. 305, a Georgia case in which the Libertarian Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor successfully overturned a state law requiring candidates for state office to be tested for illegal drugs.