A few days ago, Ralph Nader received some relief from the costs assessed against him in 2004 by the people who had challenged his Pennsylvania petition. Pennsylvania state courts had awarded the challengers $81,102 under the unique Pennsylvania system that says if a petition doesn’t have enough valid signatures, the petitioning candidate or group must pay large court costs. Peter Camejo, Nader’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004, had then paid $20,000. Nader had $30,000 seized from one of his bank accounts and another $30,000, in another bank, had been frozen ever since.

After the Pennsylvania scheme was held unconstitutional on July 24, 2015, Nader’s attorney notified the 2004 challengers that the basis for the award against Nader no longer exists. While there was no legal requirement that the challengers do anything about that, they did release the remaining $30,000.