Pia Varna, the only Republican running for the U.S. House seat in Pennsylvania’s First district, has been removed from the Republican primary ballot because some of her signatures were collected by people who don’t live in the First district. See this story. One must read to the very end of the story to learn the basis for the challenge to her petition. UPDATE: the candidate expects to file a lawsuit soon in federal court, challenging the residency requirement for circulators of primary petitions.
However, in 2002, a federal court struck down Pennsylvania’s residency requirement for petition circulators for candidates. That decision, Morrill v Weaver, 224 F.Supp. 2d 882, says, “We believe that precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court and federal Circuit Courts clearly compel us to find that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution prohibit those portions of sec. 2911(d) which require affiants to be residents of the particular electoral districts in which candidates are running. We declare all such provisions to be unconstitutional and void.”
Pennsylvania has seven ballot access restrictions that have been held unconstitutional, but which the legislature has never amended. The residency requirement for circulators is one such law.
In the current case it was probably 25 P.S. § 2879 that was applied rather than 25 P.S. § 2911(d). The former applies to petitions for placement on the primary ballot; the latter for direct placement on the general election ballot.
Nonstop injunctions and BIG damage actions against ALL of the party hack election law MORONS involved.
“We declare all such provisions to be unconstitutional and void” tells me the court was striking down both of them.
If this “law” was around ruled in court to be unconstitutional then why in the heck are they still following it?
Also, how does this effect minor party and independent candidates?
#3 “all such provisions” is vague as to what it is being applied to. It is in a paragraph that refers specifically 25 P.S. § 2911(d).
25 P.S. § 2911(d) restricts circulators to “qualified electors of the electoral district”.
25 P.S. § 2879 restricts circulators to those “enrolled as a member of the designated party of the the political district”
Pennsylvania may well have an interest in ensuring that circulators of petitions for primaries are bona fide members of the party, and of the locality of the office being sought.
#4
25 P.S. § 2911(d) applies to political bodies (and indirectly to minor political parties). It has has an annotation referencing Morrill v Weaver.
25 P.S. § 2879 applies to candidates seeking a place on the primary ballot of a major political party.
#4
The text in the circulator section of the nomination paper for minor party and political body candidates affirms the circulator as a qualified elector of the
Commonwealth of PA. There is no text requiring the circulator to be an elector of the district of the candidate.
In the circulator section for the (major) political party petition for Congress (for the primary), there is text regarding the circulator being an elector of the political district that the candidate is running in.
An additional lawsuit required?
MORON judges have to be EXACT in declaring exactly what language is unconstitutional — especially for the SUPER-MORON party hack legislatures and party hack election bureaucrats — with their very limited brain power ability to understand anything legal.
How about having a U.S.A. Marshal show up and arrest the party hack MORONS in public for subverting the U.S.A. Constitution ??? TV news at 10/11 P.M.
#7 A particular distinction between major party nomination petitions and minor party or political body nomination papers, is that the latter permits nomination of multiple candidates.
So a circulator of nomination papers is acting as agent of the minor political party or political body, that has already chosen its candidates, and is seeking to qualify them for placement on the general election ballot.
So if a minor party/political office were wanting to qualify candidates for statewide office and legislative offices, they would have to circulate separate petitions for each legislative district (and county).
Once you had identified a potential signer, you would have to get the sheet that was appropriate for their legislative and congressional districts and county. If you had to also get a circulator from that particular combination of districts it would put a severe burden on the party.
On the other hand, the party nomination petitions are for an individual candidate who seeks to be placed on the primary ballot of his party. The circulator is acting as an agent of a particular candidate who is seeking office as the candidate of a particular party from a particular district. It is not a particular burden that a circulator also be qualified to sign the petition and vote for the candidate.