On April 12, Pennsylvania filed this brief in Benezet Consulting LLC v Secretary Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 20-2976. This is a case filed in 2016 against the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators for primary election petitions. In 2020 the U.S. District Court held the ban to be unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs, for the 2020 election only. The state is not appealing that decision. But the plaintiffs are appealing, because they feel that the relief should extend to all future elections, for all future out-of-state circulators who want to work on primary petitions.
The state says the reason the U.S. District Court was right to restrict relief is that other future out-of-state circulators might be unwilling to promise to submit to the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania officials, in case there is any question about their work. Footnote six of the state’s brief says, “The petition circulator business lacks stability. Independent contractors are used instead of regular employees. The record demonstrates that those who contract with Benezet and similar companies are generally transient and do not have fixed addresses. This fully supports the conclusion that the district court could not determine wither other paid petition circulators would in fact submit to the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania courts.”
This seems silly. There seems to be no reason why the U.S. District Court could not have simply ruled the restriction unconstitutional as applied to all present and future out-of-state circulators who do agree to submit to the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania officials. That is how similar cases from other states have been handled.
