How Have the Most Likely U.S. Supreme Court Nominees Ruled in Cases Involving Independent Candidates or Minor Parties?

Posted on by July 6, 2018

According to various news stories, the three most likely nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court this month are three U.S. Court of Appeals judges, Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge, and Amy Barrett.

Judge Kavanaugh had one case involving the Libertarian Party. In 2008 the District of Columbia accepted Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr’s declaration of write-in filing. Barr was not on the ballot, but he wanted his write-ins counted, so he filed the names of three eligible presidential elector candidates with the Board. He was the only declared write-in candidate for president in D.C. that year. Nevertheless, the D.C. Board of Elections refused to reveal how many write-ins he had received. Therefore, the election returns, compiled in various publications, all showed that Barr had received zero votes in D.C.

The party sued to force the Board to tally the write-ins, but the U.S. District Court, and the D.C. circuit, ruled against the party. Judge Kavanaugh was part of the panel in Libertarian Party v D.C. Board of Elections. At oral argument, he expressed support for the party’s position, but when the decision came out, he had sided with the other two judges. They ruled that the votes had been counted, because the D.C. Board of Elections revealed the total number of write-ins cast for president, including frivolous write-ins and write-ins for people who had not filed a write-in declaration of candidacy. This was an absurd conclusion. One might have said that if the Board had released no election returns for any candidate for president, except the total number of votes cast for president, that the Board had “counted” the votes.

Judge Raymond Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit wrote the 2016 decision in U.S. v NorCal Tea PartyPatriots, a case on whether the Internal Revenue Service was discriminating against Tea Party groups when they filed for tax-exempt status. It starts, “Among the most serious allegations a federal court can address are that an Executive agency has targeted citizens for mistreatment based on their political views. No citizen – Republican or Democrat, socialist or libertarian – should be targeted or even have to fear being targeted on those grounds.”

Judge Kethledge was also on the panel in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 11-4066, which made a favorable procedural ruling for the Libertarian Party on August 31, 2012. The U.S. District Court had earlier put the party on the ballot for the 2011 partisan elections, and the state had asked the Sixth Circuit to reverse that. The Sixth Circuit, in a per curiam decision, said the case at that point was moot, because the law the party was challenging had been suspended by a successful referendum petition.

Judge Amy Barrett of the Seventh Circuit has never had a case involving minor parties or independent candidates.

Comments

How Have the Most Likely U.S. Supreme Court Nominees Ruled in Cases Involving Independent Candidates or Minor Parties? — 13 Comments

  1. REALITY CHECK —

    ONLY a robot super-HACK will be nominated by the tyrant HACK in the Oval Office.

    SCOTUS State of WAR since the 1989 Bork nomination.

  4. http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99897

    Kavanaugh stuff

    ALL of the usual suspects/groups will instantly compile lots of dirt on whoever Trump nominates —

    — going back — at least to pre-skoool sand box fights [did he/she fight *fair*] — and nominee genetics where possible.

  7. Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party perpetuate the USA two-party system with every single winner district power grab and that will keep the SCOTUS under the two party’s control.

    Are you interested in fair elections, equal treatment and equal time in competitive USA elections?

    The United Coalition has been bringing pure proportional representation (PPR) to the voters for twenty-three consecutive years and PPR works fine but the Libertarian and Green Parties don’t want you to know. The Libertarian Party and Green Parties bring you conflict conflict, down-sizibg, division and self-destruction year after year while they bully, censor and snuff out the work of the United Coalition and individuals working for mathematical unity of PPR.

    http://www.international-parliament.org/ucc.html

  9. JO —

    18 States have voter petitions for State Const Amdts

    One of the top 2 gangs in each of such States (and all minor parties and independents) are screwed by the ballot access and/or gerrymander systems —

    = NO shortage of REAL stuff to do – having REAL effects —

    since SCOTUS is brain dead evil corrupt/stupid about ballot access and/or gerrymander systems.

  10. Honourable DR, our team opwration is now fully underway on the national and international levels thanks to the efforts of our recently elected support group, the 8th California Parliament.

    Our women and men are landing on Normandy Beach one by one, side by side, and many of them are no longer standing but the next ones up are synchronising as a coordinated team now.

    Already we have pushed more that 15 feet onto the land in a few areas and we appreciate the communication with you here in this battle against the gerrymanderers and the SF one-party system.

    The One Party welcomes all parties and independents to the beach where our top generals are on the front line while the shake up of team has begun because we aren’t doing a good job as coaches.

    http://www.allpartysystem.com/one.php

  12. ANY of the Trump types able to write any law review articles, ops, op eds, etc about the rotted election systems in the USA ??? —

    1. UNEQUAL ballot access laws

    2. Minority rule gerrymanders

    3. Lack of TOTAL Separation of Powers

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