On September 10, the Attorney General of New Mexico, Raul Torrez, a Democrat, filed an amicus curiae in the Tenth Circuit in New Mexico Forward Party v Toulouse Oliver, 26-2145. The surprise is that he filed it on the side of the Forward Party, and argues that New Mexico’s ballot access laws for new and minor parties are so difficult that they are unconstitutional. Here is his brief.

I have been following constitutional ballot access cases for sixty years and I don’t believe that the Attorney General of any state has ever taken that position in any previous constitutional ballot access case. There have been many instances when a state consented that one of its ballot access laws was unconstitutional, but this is a contested case.