Gary Sinawski died in New York city on September 15 at the age of 67. He was counsel to the Libertarian Party national committee but he was also one of the nation’s most experienced and accomplished ballot access attorneys. Over the last thirty years he represented virtually every nationally-organized minor party that did constitutional ballot access litigation, and he won at least nine constitutional election law cases and many more other election law cases.

Sinawski won a case in 1984 striking down Massachusetts’ May petition deadline for minor party and independent candidates; the state was forced to move it to July. To this day, that case, Serrette v Connolly, is the only instance of any minor party winning a constitutional ballot access lawsuit against Massachusetts ballot access laws. Massachusetts is a state in which both the federal judges and the state judges are very loath to ever rule in favor of minor party and independent candidates.

In 1988, Sinawski won a decision in federal court in Michigan, Fulani v Austin, which established that when a state legislature adds petition hurdles in an election law as late as April, expecting a petitioning group to comply with such newly-enacted hurdles to participate in that year’s election violates due process. Sinawski also won a ruling in the 7th circuit in Fulani v Hogsett that a minor party presidential candidate does have standing to sue, if a state puts a major party nominee on the ballot even though the major party nominee did not comply with statutory deadlines.

In 1991, representing the Libertarian Party for the first time, Sinawski won a case against three Kentucky ballot access laws: (1) the February petition deadline; (2) the requirement that petitions carry the social security number of each signer; (3) a requirement that only registered members of the party could sign these general election petitions. This was a landmark victory, because the Kentucky Libertarian Party had not tried to get on the ballot in the 1991 state election, and Sinawski had to defeat the state’s arguments that therefore the Libertarians didn’t have standing. To this day, Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Ehrler is a landmark for standing.

In 1992, representing the Constitution, Natural Law, New Alliance, and Populist Parties, Sinawski won injunctive relief against Nevada’s June petition deadline for minor party petitions. This is one of only six instances nationwide when a June petition deadline was defeated in court. Nevada moved its deadlines to July, but years later moved them back to earlier months, and the Nevada deadline is again being litigated by the Green Party.

In 1994, Sinawski won a New York case for the newly-formed Independence Party, over whether it was permitted to substitute a new gubernatorial nominee in place of its original nominee. Because he won the case, the party was permitted to run Thomas Golisano, who had such a large campaign that the party met the 50,000 vote test and became established.

In 1996, Sinawski won a case for the Natural Law Party against South Carolina’s requirement that a newly-qualifying party must have had organizing meetings early in the year, even if the party hadn’t yet been in existence. Also in 1996, he won a case in the Fifth Circuit against the Texas requirement that independent candidate petitions had to include the voter registration number of each signer.

In 2006, Sinawski won the Libertarian Party landmark case against Ohio, which resulted in Ohio being forced to put four minor parties on the ballot in each of the election years 2008 through 2014. The 2006 decision established that the Ohio petition deadline, November of the odd year before the election year, is unconstitutional. Although Sinawski did not do follow-up litigation against Ohio that resulted in four minor parties being on the ballot in each of the elections 2008 through 2014, it was Sinawski’s 2006 victory in the Sixth Circuit that made all the others possible.

Sinawski had been in poor health during most of 2014, but his death was a shocking blow to his family and friends, because he had finally come home from the hospital and seemed to be recovering. But, two days after he came home, he suffered a fatal heart attack. Sinawski won many election law cases in New York not detailed here. He had graduated from Harvard cum laude in 1968 and had graduated from law school at the University of Michigan. He was an unusually compassionate and gentle attorney. One of the secrets to his success in court was that he always displayed an open-minded, gentle, mature method of presenting his argument. I watched him argue the Ohio case in 2006 and can testify that his effective oral presentation was essential to the victory in that case.