On April 25, the Montana legislature forwarded SB 270 to the desk of Governor Brian D. Schweitzer. It moves the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates, and petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, from June to March.
Please ask Governor Schweitzer to veto SB 270. His fax is 406-444-5529. His e-mail is governor@mt.gov. His postal address is State Capitol, Helena Mt 59620. He must act by May 5.
The only argument in favor of this bill is that since Democrats and Republicans must file declarations of candidacy in March to run in the June primary, therefore all others ought to act in March as well. But the “equal treatment” argument is fallacious. Candidates running in primaries don’t need petitions. Statewide independent candidates in Montana need 5,000 signatures. Forcing them to submit these petitions in March requires them to petition in winter. Furthermore, non-presidential independent candidate petitions deadlines are unconstitutional, if they are that early. Similar deadlines, for office other than president, have been invalidated in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Even Montana’s old March deadline was invalidated in a Montana lower state court in 1990, which is why the legislature moved it to June in 1991. The Montana Supreme Court then ruled that the plaintiff who filed the 1990 lawsuit didn’t have standing to complain about the deadline, so there was no final judicial opinion in a higher court in Montana.
If this bill passes, all of the legislators that voted for it as well as the govenor ought to be forced to go out and collect petition signatures in the winter. Let them see what it’s like to stand outside all day in the freezing cold asking people – many of whom are apathetic or hostile – to sign a petition. If these legislators and the govenor were forced to do this themselves for a few weeks in the winter it would probably change their minds.