The Gazette-Democrat has this story about the decision of U.S. District Court Judge James Moody not to enjoin the Arkansas law that says convention parties must choose all their nominees at least a year before the general election.

What the story does not say, and what the judge does not say, is that in 1996, another U.S. District Court Judge in Arkansas struck down the law saying a new party must submit its petition by January of the election year. If it is unconstitutional to require a new party to complete its petition for party status by January of the election year, then it should be obvious that it can’t be constitutional to require a new party to choose all its nominees before November of the odd year before the election.

Judge Moody’s claim that if the Libertarian Party, and other newly-qualifying parties, were allowed to nominate in the election year, that would cause “voter confusion” is unsupported by any logic or evidence. And the judge’s statement that it is constitutional for a state to require that all candidates (whether running in a primary, or being nominated in a convention, or getting on the general election ballot by petition) file simultaneously has been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court four times: Anderson v Celebrezze, Mandel v Bradley, Lendall v Jernigan, and Salera v Tucker. As the U.S. Supreme Court said in Jenness v Fortson, “Sometimes the grossest discrimination can lie in treating things that are different as though they were exactly alike.”