This article in the January 7 Staten Island Advance says, “Independent presidential candidates have to file with the various states by March, April, or May.” That sentence is erroneous. All of the independent presidential candidate deadlines of the 50 states and D.C. are in June, July, August and September, except that the Texas deadline is in May. UPDATE: the newspaper will run a correction on January 9.
As most readers of this blog already know, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that early petition deadlines for independent and minor party presidential candidates are unconstitutional. The case was Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 US 780.
‘Anderson v Celebrezze’ was a muddle-headed 5-4 decision which set no clear standard as to what an early petition deadline is, and says nothing about filing dates for party candidates.
In 1980, the Ohio presidential primary was in June, and the filing deadline for non-party candidates was in March. 5 non-party candidates successfully met the deadline. After failure in early GOP primaries, Anderson switched to a non-party candidacy, and withdrew from the Ohio GOP primary.
In 2008, the Ohio presidential primary is March 4th. The filing deadline for non-party candidates for offices other than President* is now the day before the primary. Were an Anderson-like candidacy to arise now, it could meet a March 3rd deadline after failure in January or February primaries; or alternatively would run afoul of the sore-loser provisions of Ohio election law.
In ‘Anderson’, the majority claimed that the sore-loser provision was sufficient to curb factionalism, which the court recognized as a legitimate state interest.
*Ohio now has a much later filing deadline for non-party presidential candidacies. Nonetheless, it is not clear at all that the current court would not accept a March 3rd filing deadline, especially given the weakness of the majority thinking in 1983.