Philadelphia elects city offices on November 3, 2015, including City Commissioner (not the same office as City Councilmember). The only petitioning candidate this year for City Commissioner is Glenn C. Davis, chair of the Green Party of Philadelphia. His petition has been challenged, even though on July 24, 2015, a U.S. District Court struck down Pennsylvania’s challenge procedures as applied to the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties.
The U.S. District Court order in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania, et al, v Cortes, says, “It is hereby ordered that 25 P.S. 2911(b) and 25 P.S. 2937 are hereby declared unconstitutional as applied to plaintiffs.” There will be state court proceedings this week on the Davis matter.
Bad habits are hard to break.
What is the post court ruling procedure for verifying the validity of petition signatures in Pennsylvania?
There is none, as least for candidates of the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties. The Pennsylvania legislature will have a legislative hearing next month on SB 495.
Can the candidate sue in court over this matter?
What is SB 495?
I will be there in court this morning for the Green Party
The procedure had been to review petition sheets line by line to try to verify any challenged signatures, or other details, with the looming threat of being slapped with the challengers legal fees on top of your own. Glenn’s counsel will likely ask the judge to dismiss the challenge due to the recent court ruling invalidating that process.
PA SB495 is a long pending bill in the state senate that would reform ballot access and party recognition law to resolve recent and older invalidated parts of the election code.