On March 20, the Pennsylvania Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties filed this brief in Constitution Party v Aichele, e.d., 5:12cv-2726. This is the lawsuit that challenges the system under which petitioning groups are at risk of at much as $110,000 in court costs and attorney fees if they file a petition that doesn’t have enough valid signatures. Originally in this case the U.S. District Court had said the plaintiffs don’t have standing, but last year the Third Circuit said they do have standing and sent the case back to the U.S. District Court.
Why is it that the injured party doesn’t have standing?
In 2013 the US District Court said just because Ralph Nader was assessed over $85,000 in 2004, and just because the Green Party was assessed about the same amount in 2006, that did not mean that it would ever happen again. The US District Court in 2013 didn’t even mention that the Libertarian Party had withdrewn its 2010 petition out of fear of costs, and that in 2012 the attorney for the Republican challengers warned the Libertarians that if they didn’t withdrew their petition they were in danger of paying up to $110,000.
Maybe we need a change in the law that says if the challenger loses, then they pay the injured party. The Penn legislature would probably never pass such a bill.
Another JUNK brief that fails to note that —
1. Every election is NEW.
2. Separate is NOT equal – Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
See page 21 of the brief.
3. More JUNK about vague adjectives – severe, just, etc.
The word is EQUAL in the EQUAL protection clause in the 14th Amdt.,Sec. 1.
What century will it be before a lawyer with some EQUAL brain cells can be found to file a PROPER ballot access case ???
The change in the law we need is pending in the Pennsylvania Senate. It is SB 495. Minor parties would nominate by convention and their nominees would go on the November ballot with no petition, if they have as many as approximately 5,000 registered members. Independent candidate petitions would be 2,000 for statewide office and 200 for US House.
Its sad when a political party in what is supposed to be a free country as the United States is supposed to be, has to be driven with fear of being financially destroyed because they could not persuade X number of voters to simply sign a ballot position petition – let alone be willing to vote for their candidates.
I thought it was in totalitarian regimes like Cuba or North Korea where terror tactics were used to keep the masses under control. Just to imagine hearing a Republican Party representative alledge we are going to allow the state to sue you for $110,000 if your petition drive fails, smacks of backroom politics and political bosses.
I know there are a few good Republicans – just as there are a few good Democrats. But many of them are power-hungry and do not care who they destroy to get their way.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and a few others would be spinning in their graves if they knew how corrupt we have allowed politics to get in this “republic.”
SB 495, a.k.a. Voters Choice Act is one way to remedy the institutional discrimination that is current PA law, but there could be other, perhaps even better ways. For example, adopting a voting system that virtually eliminates spoiler effect, so that ballot access can be widely open to all candidates that satisfy a “modicum of support”, on an equal basis, without any candidates having to fear the presence of multiple candidates, and then eliminating party mechanisms from ballot access altogether since at that point they would no longer serve any public interest whatsoever.
Unfortunately neither this solution nor SB 495 is likely to happen any time soon, because the two major parties control the legislature and it is in their party interest to minimize voter choice (i.e. suppress democracy) because voters having choices means uncertainty for their organizations and a need to really compete in more than a fraction of races.
When proponents of reform just assume that a legislature won’t do the right thing, they have defeated themselves. State legislatures have voluntarily improved the ballot access laws in the last 31 years in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. That is 30 states.
Richard:
You are more of an Optimist that I am. Yes, there has been some improvement over the last 3 decades in 30 states. But how does one measure “improvement?” I’m an Idealist. There is only one way for improvement, and that is to make the requirements for all parties and Independents equal – such as in Florida. And one could throw Louisiana in there, since all candidates start out equally. I will not be satisfied until all states are either like Florida or Louisiana – though I prefer Florida since it encourages a partisan correlation with the candidates.
We’ve a long way to go, and I doubt I’ve got another 30 years to do it. I helped draft my first election reform bill when I was about 25 years old – which of course got no where. Finally, the voters of Florida – by chance or by enlightenment – corrected the corrupt system in Florida with a history making state constitution amendment in 1996.
The problem is, Florida requires a State Constitutional Convention every 20 years, which means in 2 years, efforts could be made by the corrupt two major parties to undo what the voters did 20 years earlier. There have been no “spoiler” elections in the last 18 years in Florida (the Gore/Bush fiasco being excluded) – but that is not good enough for the corrupt parties. They don’t fear us being on the ballot as much as they fear our ideas.
Just image the panic in the hearts of the private bankers if a national, strongly organized 3rd party, advocated for abolition of the Federal Reserve System, and the institution of a Congressionally controlled Public Banking System. There wouldn’t be enough hotel windows for them all to jump out of.
I’m going to keep plugging on. Just spoke with a young man today who has a burning desire to destroy the corrupt two party system. Hopefully, his generation will be successful.
How many States having robot party hack primaries ( open, closed or whatever ) have EQUAL ballot access requirements for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the SAME area ???
Will such equal access require having the now infamous top 2 primary stuff in ALL States ???
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The good provision in the Florida Constitution is safe, because nowadays the Florida Constitution can only be changed by a vote of the people of at least 60%.
Also it was 1998, not 1996, when the Florida good change passed.
The 60 percent stuff in FL is one more blatant subversion of the Republican Form of Govt stuff in Art. IV, Sec. 4 and the Equal Protection clause in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 —
regardless of ANY JUNK opinion by the SCOTUS robot party hacks.
I.E. the SCOTUS hacks are now TOTAL partisan HACKS — since the Bork nomination stuff in the late 1980s.
Stay under the radar as a lower court judge — or even as a student in a SCOTUS type law school.
Say ZERO at any SCOTUS nomination hearing about any past, present or future case.
Become a HACK instantly upon taking the USA oath of office.