On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that it will not hear De La Fuente v Simon, 20-612, the challenge to the Minnesota law that gives a political party complete control over which presidential primary candidates may appear on that party’s presidential primary ballot. Such laws are rare; the only other states with similar laws are Florida and Georgia. The Court has never heard a presidential primary ballot access case.
On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that it won’t hear Kopitke v Bell, 20-897, the challenge to the North Carolina independent presidential petition deadline of March 3. That deadline, created in 2018, violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1983 decision Anderson v Celebrezze, which struck down Ohio’s March 20 deadline.
The result will create disorder if there is a presidential candidate running outside the major parties in future elections who doesn’t begin his or her campaign until the election year itself.
The court’s action continues its 30-year unbroken record of denying all cert petitions filed by minor party and independent candidates on ballot access. It is as though every member of the U.S. Supreme Court has silently concluded that the constitution does not apply to the voting rights of persons who wish to vote for candidates other than Democratic and Republican nominees.
The Virginia Constitution Party has nominated a full slate of statewide candidates, and is about to start petitioning to get them on the ballot. The Constitution Party has never before completed a statewide petition in Virginia, except for President. The nominees each need their own separate petition. They are Timothy Phipps for Governor, Sheila Tittle for Lieutenant Governor, and David A. McKelvey for Attorney General. Each petition needs 2,000 signatures.
The number of signatures was reduced last month by a lawsuit in state court. The number of signatures is lower this year than at any time since 1969. Back before 1970, the statewide non-presidential petitions was 250 signatures.
Former Congressman Justin Amash, a member of the Libertarian Party, has this interview on WZZM, a station in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is his first interview since he left congress.
On February 19, the Maine Libertarian Party filed this response brief in Baines v Bellows, 1:19cv-509. This is the ballot access case filed in 2019, challenging Maine’s definition of “political party”, and the requirements for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballot, and the law that eliminates all a party’s registrants when it goes off the ballot.
