On January 8, U.S. District Court Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Carter appointee, ruled from the bench after oral argument in Sweeney v Crigler, e.d., 2:19cv-46. He ruled that Kentucky’s law requiring independent and minor party candidates for state office to file a declaration of candidacy in January of election years violates the U.S. Constitution. The order will be in writing on January 10. This is a Libertarian Party case.

Republican and Democratic candidates must file a declaration of candidacy in January, but that is clearly necessary, because their primary is in May. But minor parties (parties that polled less than 20% for president) nominate by convention, so there is no rational need for a declaration of candidacy for them.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer who lives in Alabama, criticizes Alabama ballot access laws in this column in Alabama Political Reporter. He correctly notes that no statewide minor party or statewide independent petition (except for president, which is easier) has succeeded in Alabama in twenty years. He also points out that the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot is 20%, the highest percentage in the nation.

The Secretary of State of Alabama then wrote a so-called rebuttal, which Alabama Political Reporter published. The Secretary of State makes much of the fact that some independent and minor party petitions for district or county office have succeeded in recent years, but the Secretary of State has nothing to say about statewide petitions.

Kennedy could also have pointed out that Alabama is engaging in a fierce legal fight to retain its law that says only qualified parties can get a free list of the registered voters, whereas unqualified parties who are trying to petition must pay $34,000 for the list. The Alabama Libertarian Party is suing over this law, and the state is requiring that all the plaintiffs undergo time-consuming depositions for a case that should be decided simply on precedent. In 1970 the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge U.S. District Court decision from New York, that states that give a free list of registered voters to qualified parties must also give the list to parties that are petitioning. When other states have been sued on this issue, they have always given in, or put up feeble defense, but not Alabama.

On January 9, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed this brief in U.S. District Court in LP of Ohio v Tavares, s.d., 2:19cv-2501. This is the case in which the Libertarian Party challenges the law that says the State Election Commission will be composed of three Democrats, three Republicans, and a seventh member who must be an independent. The Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified in Ohio and yet cannot possibly have a member on the commission.

The brief also asks that once the constitutional issue is determined, that the court rule on whether it was wrong for the Commission to have set up gubernatorial debates in 2018 in which only the Democratic and Republican Party nominees were invited, and without even setting any objective standards for admission to the debate.