On January 13, U.S. Senator Cory Booker withdrew from the Democratic presidential race. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
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On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court released the list of actions taken at the January 10 conference. Although both cases involving “disobedient” presidential electors were on the January 10 conference, the Court did not act on either of them. They will be considered again at the January 17 conference. The two cases are Colorado Department of State v Baca, 19-518; and Chiafalo v Washington State, 19-465.
In 2016, Rocky De La Fuente sued Arizona over its independent presidential primary ballot access law. It required almost twice as many signatures as were needed for a new party in 2016. The independent presidential petition requirement was 35,514 signatures, but the party petition was 20,119. Courts in Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina had held that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more signatures for a single independent candidate than for an entire new party.
Also, the Arizona independent presidential petition had not been used since 2008, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said that ballot access procedures that are seldom used are probably unconstitutional.
The case moved very slowly, but finally in 2019, a U.S. District Court Magistrate upheld the law. De La Fuente appealed to the Ninth Circuit. However, on January 9, 2020, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal because De La Fuente had failed to file his opening brief by the deadline.
This had been De La Fuente’s only ongoing ballot access case that relates to getting on the ballot in the general election.
On January 10, filing closed for Louisiana presidential primaries. Candidates get on the ballot with a filing fee of $750.
The Independent Party is the first party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, to have its own presidential primary in Louisiana. Qualified parties with at least 40,000 registered members qualify. However, no one filed in the Independent Party presidential primary.
Five Republicans filed: Rocky De La Fuente, Bob Ely, Matthew John Matern, Donald Trump, and Bill Weld.
Fourteen Democrats filed: Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Deval Patrick, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, Robby Wells, and Andrew Yang. Thanks to J. Bradley Jansen for this news.
Mike Feinstein has this op-ed in the Riverside, California newspaper, the Press Enterprise. The ad mentions that the “Common Sense” Party is trying to qualify for the ballot, and that the party’s leaders, former Republican Congressman Tom Campbell and former independent State Senator Quentin Kopp, believe that it can be a voice for centrists. The op-ed points out, though, that in the top-two primary, having Common Sense Party candidates for Congress and partisan state office on the primary ballot will probably make it even more likely that two Democrats will emerge from the primary, and then that race will have only two Democrats on the November ballot.
Campbell and Kopp have this op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, boosting the Common Sense Party. They seem to feel the top-two system will help the Common Sense Party, if it gets on the ballot. They ignore the fact that in the entire history of top-two in California, there is not one instance of a minor party candidate placing first or second, if both a Democrat and a Republican had also filed for that office.