December 16 was the Vermont deadline for candidates to submit 1,000 signatures to get on a presidential primary ballot. Three Republicans submitted a petition, and thirteen Democrats submitted one. See the list from the Vermont Secretary of State’s web page.
Julian Castro didn’t have 1,000 valid signatures, but the law lets candidates in that situation have a chance to collect more signatures, as long as they had submitted at least 1,000 raw signatures by the deadline.
On December 16, the Ninth Circuit said that the five federal cases over the California tax returns-ballot access law are moot. The Ninth Circuit order in all these combined cases says, “Because these appeals were mooted by the California Supreme Court’s decision in Patterson v Padilla, and not through any voluntary actions of the parties, we remand these matters to the district court with instruction to vacate the October 2, 2019 order.”
This means that the U.S. District Court order, finding that the California law keeping presidential primary candidates off ballots unless they reveal their income tax returns violates the U.S. Constitution, can’t be used as a precedent in future litigation. Here is the three-page order.
The Fourth Circuit will hear Johnston v Lamone, 19-1783, on Thursday, January 9, 2020. This is the case on whether it is constitutional for Maryland to force the Libertarian Party to submit 10,000 signatures in order to get back on the ballot, even though the party has approximately 22,000 registered members. The party argues that the petition is meaningless because it is obvious that there are at least 10,000 voters who want the party on the ballot; otherwise they wouldn’t remain registered members. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law.
On December 16, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, a Clinton appointee, refused to block a 2014 Arizona law that makes it more difficult for statewide initiatives to get on the ballot. The law says that after an initiative is submitted, if anyone challenges the sufficiency of that petition, any paid circulator or any out-of-state circulator who worked on the petition must appear in court to answer questions about their work. If they do not appear, then all the signatures they collected are deemed invalid.
The case against the law is still alive, but while the case continues, the law will be in effect. Here is the decision in Miracle v Hobbs, 2:19cv-4694. The restriction does not apply to petitions for candidates or new parties.
On December 10, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the city of Seattle to file a response brief in Elster v City of Seattle, 19-608. This is the case that says the First Amendment is violated by the city’s campaign voucher law. That law gives every Seattle voter campaign finance vouchers. The voter is free to give his or her voucher to any candidate (for city office). Then that candidate may submit the voucher to the city and in return receive money for the campaign.
The plaintiffs argue that the First Amendment does not permit a government to spend money in this fashion, because it means a city taxpayer is being forced to subsidize campaign speech that the taxpayer may not agree with.
Here is the amicus curiae of the Goldwater Institute, filed on December 12. It argues in favor of Elster and against the city.
