On Sunday, December 13, the Ohio Libertarian Party asked for a rehearing in the part of its ballot access case that is pending in the Sixth Circuit. Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 15-4270. The Sixth Circuit last week ruled that procedural obstacles stand in the way of that court’s acting in the lawsuit at this time. One of the three judges who made that ruling is Judge Alice Batchelder.

The petition for rehearing argues that the panel was mistaken about the procedural issue. It also argues that Judge Batchelder should recuse herself because she is married to Ohio state representative William Batchelder, who was one of the sponsors of SB 193, the ballot access bill passed in 2013 that is the object of the lawsuit. Representative Batchelder was speaker of the Ohio House at the time. Judge Alice Batchelder was appointed a U.S. District Court Judge by President Ronald Reagan, and to the Sixth Circuit by President George W. Bush.

The part of the case that is in the Sixth Circuit argues that the ballot access bill violates the Ohio Constitution. The U.S. District Court is still considering another part of the case, over whether the 2014 actions of Ohio officials, when they kept the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Governor off the Libertarian primary ballot, were unlawful because of discriminatory enforcement of the law. The law, requiring paid petitioners who believed themselves to be independent contractors, said paid petitioners had to identify their employer on the petition. The law had never before been used to disqualify any candidate or any ballot measure from the ballot.