In 2010, the Texas Green Party successfully petitioned for a spot on the Texas ballot, and appeared on the ballot, despite a Texas Democratic Party lawsuit that said the party’s petition drive might have been paid for by a corporation. That lawsuit was Texas Democratic Party v Texas Green Party, Travis Co., d-1-gn-10-1924. Before the 2010 election, a lower court judge had removed the party from the ballot, but the Texas Supreme Court had reversed that order and put it back on.
Now the corporation that paid for the Green Party’s petition drive has filed a federal lawsuit, pointing out that (1) Texas law already permits corporations to contribute to parties for “normal overhead, administrative and operating costs” and that petitioning for minor parties fits that description; (2) regardless of that point, it is unconstitutional for a state to forbid a corporation from making a donation to a political party. The new federal case is Take Initiative America, Inc., v Texas Democratic Party, western district, 1:11-cv-701-SS. If a trial is held in this case, it will be in September 2012. It seems likely that the state court case will now be dismissed, and the federal court lawsuit will take its place. One of the co-plaintiffs in the case is Free & Equal, Inc., the petitioning firm that collected the signatures.
It is interesting that in the Texas Democratic Party counterclaim, they added two individual candidates who sought offices where they had authority over election administration.
John Warren is the Dallas County Clerk, in which he played a instrumental role in the removal of the long-time independent elections administrator of Dallas County. The County Clerk serves on a 5-member board that has the authority to hire and fire the Elections Administrator. It was a 3-2 vote to not reconsider hiring the elections administrator.
The elections administrator had been pushed out of office coincident with his filing of the appeal to the US Supreme Court in the case of whether Dallas County should have sought preclearance for use of voting machines that had already been cleared twice, and whose actual operation had already been found constitutional.
The (official) instigator of that removal was Clay Jenkins who is the Dallas County Judge, but who was a lawyer for the Democratic Party in the case, in which he could be awarded attorney’s fee.
Ann Bennett was the losing candidate for Harris County Clerk. In Harris County, the county clerk does administer elections, other than voter registration.
So in effect, the Democrats complaint is that they were harmed in their efforts to control elections.
The day after the state district court judge had made his ruling, he gave $10,000 to the Travis County Democratic Party.
Boyd Ritchie, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party attempted to organize what amounted to an e-mail bombing of the Green Party nominees. Since the solicitation included personal e-mail addresses of the candidates it would be interesting to know whether Ritchie obtained the address through the discovery process.
In any case, a contribution similar to the judges, even if made by a corporation could have been used to fund an e-mail similar to Ritchie’s.
BTW, one of the Texas Democratic Party’s counterclaims is that the the Texas Green Party should be removed from the 2012 ballot.