On July 1, the Eighth Circuit issued an eight-page opinion in Moore v Thurston, 18-1382. This is the case filed in 2014 against the Arkansas March deadline for non-presidential candidates. After the case won, the legislature changed the deadline to May 1. But, oddly, they still appealed to the Eighth Circuit, hoping to get a ruling that the U.S. District Court decision should be erased.
The Eighth Circuit declined to erase the U.S. District Court decision. Although the case became moot once the legislature improved the deadline, and although decisions in moot cases are sometimes vacated, in this case the U.S. District Court decision will not be vacated. The Eighth Circuit wrote, “Independent candidates and voters have repeatedly – and successfully – challenged Arkansas’s ballot-access requirements. We thus conclude that the public interest is best served by a substantial body of judicial precedents limiting the burden that those requirements may place on candidates’ and voters’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.”
More screwing up of ***EQUAL*** ballot access tests.
Correct decision not to vacate, though the Court’s reasoning is suspect. Justice Scalia in Bonner Mall strongly suggested that governmental litigants are responsible for their legislatures’ actions, and thus legislative chanage is not happenstance. Because it is attributable to the losing party (the governmental litigant) vacatur is not proper. No need to address equity. Courts have taken this to heart and refused vacatur under these circumstances, though admittedly there is a split in the Circuits.
While in theory there are separate branches I can tell you that in this case, in Arkansas, it is a one-party state and the party system has destroyed whatever the Founders were trying to do with separating the Legislative and Executive branches. When the Gov says “hop” the legislature of his party- 75%- say “how high”? If they don’t he backs a well-funded primary opponent and all the good-ole-boys dogpile the “offender”.
Thus the usual grounds for vacating do not apply in this situation, though the courts did not mention that aspect.
The case was actually filed in 2013! Six years of stalling, and one of the judges thought it should all be made to go away just because the state changed their laws back for the fifth time after getting caught four other times!
Mark, your case was filed February 6, 2014.
Arrgh, that’s right. I was thinking from the time the law we were fighting was changed.