On September 18, Rocky De La Fuente asked U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones to reconsider his August 21, 2017 ruling that upheld the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators in presidential primaries. De La Fuente v Cortes, m.d. 1:16cv-1696.

Judge Jones said the Pennsylvania Democratic and Republican Parties have a freedom of association right to bar circulators from outside Pennsylvania from circulating primary petitions. That part of his decision was very short and casual, and was included in his opinion that also applied the sore loser law to presidential primaries.

De La Fuente argues that because another U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania in 2015 struck down the out-of-state circulator ban for general election petitions, if the Jones opinion stands, the major parties and their candidates are being discriminated against, because they can’t use out-of-state circulators. He also argues that there is no evidence that the major parties object to letting out-of-state circulators work on primary petitions. Finally, he stresses that the particular plaintiff in this case is registered Republican; it’s just that he is a member of the Republican Party in another state. He asks the court to reopen the case and allow discovery so that he can show that the major parties don’t object. He also writes, “The person holding the clipboard with a nominating petition attached is not part of the selection process of major political party nominees.”