As reported earlier, the Ohio ballot access bill for minor parties did not pass the legislature on the evening of October 30 because the Senate rejected the House amendments. According to this story in the Columbus Dispatch, the Senate probably would have accepted the House amendments, except the Senate noticed that the House version of the bill accidentally left out language requiring a party petition to include at least 500 signatures from each of half the U.S. House districts. The story implies this is the only reason the Senate rejected the House amendments.
A conference committee will probably be appointed soon to write a final version of the bill, which almost certainly will include the distribution requirement. But the legislature isn’t expected to be in session until November 6, so the bill can’t pass the legislature until that day, unless there is an unexpected schedule change.
Assuming the House amendments (other than the accidental dropping of the distribution requirement) are part of the final bill, the provision that requires 10,000 signatures for 2014 (but approximately 28,000 in future election years) will make it more difficult to challenge the bill’s application to the 2014 election on due process grounds. However, the bill still has a constitutional problem concerning the wording of the petition. Nine federal courts, including the Sixth Circuit, have struck down wording on party petitions that implies the signers support the party, or are organizing it, or that they intend to vote for the candidates listed on the petition. Yet the bill doesn’t correct the existing law, which forces signers to say that they themselves are organizing the party. It is conceivable that the legislature will notice this problem and correct it in the conference committee.
Does the Sixth Circuit’s holding in Anderson v. Mills (1981) survive the Supreme Court’s holding in Doe v. Reed (2011), which states that there is no constitutional privacy interest in signing referenda?
I think so. A referendum petition does not say that the signer intends to vote either “yes” or “no”. It just says the signer feels that issue belongs on the ballot.
If you watch the senate video (3rd and 4th segments for October 30), it is clear that the distribution provision for 2014, was what caused the problem.
Senator Seitz made the motion to concur in the House amendments, and went through the House amendments: (1) Removal of urgency clause; (2) Reduction of number of signatures; (3) Reduction in support level to maintain qualification; and (4)the special provision for 2014 with the distribution provisions retained.
He noted that these were the conditions to get the bill out of the House, and that he was a “nice guy”. It was pretty evident that he had been active in negotiating acceptable changes.
The Democratic minority leader then asked about the distribution provisions for 2014, and they printed out the bill, or the section with the special provisions for 2014.
The senate stood at ease for a moment, and then there was a short Republican caucus, and Senator Seitz said that the House had accidentally left out the distribution provisions for 2014, and urged the senators to not concur, which they unanimously did.
There can’t be a conference committee, until after the House meets.
If there was an “accident” it wasn’t by dropping a clause. The 2014 provision says that 10,000 signatures are required, but all other provisions except the distribution requirements do not. Since Senator Seitz was explicit that there were no distribution provisions for 2014, it must have been a point of negotiation – but then it wasn’t stripped out.