On April 25, Ralph Nader asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal from a ruling of a District of Columbia court, that authorized the seizure of $81,102 from Nader’s bank account in Washington, D.C. The appeal is called Nader v Serody, 12-1294. Here is the cert petition. The dispute arose in 2004, when challengers to Nader’s Pennsylvania ballot access petition persuaded Pennsylvania state courts that not only should Nader be kept off the ballot, but that he should pay $81,102 in court costs.

The validity of Pennsylvania’s unique challenge system, which puts petitioning candidates in danger of liability for vast sums of money, is also pending in the 3rd circuit. The new U.S. Supreme Court filing has the comprehensive story of how, after Nader had been ordered to pay the court costs, facts emerged that the challengers themselves had illegally used Pennsylvania state government resources for their challenge. No court in Pennsylvania ever re-examined the costs order to take into account these new developments; nor did the D.C. court take the new information into account when it authorized the raid of Nader’s bank account.