Brief Filed in California Case on Size of Legislative Districts

Posted on by October 28, 2019
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On October 25, the opponents of the California legislature’s size filed this brief in the Ninth Circuit. The case is Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, 18-17458. The case concerns the population of legislative districts, approximately 1,000,000 per State Senate district, and 500,000 per Assembly district. The people who filed this case argue that ordinary citizens don’t have an effective voice in state government because of the huge districts.

The main thrust of the brief is that the U.S. District Court should not have dismissed the case, because this type of case calls for a 3-judge U.S. District Court.

North Carolina Ballot Access Case Hearing Set

Posted on by October 28, 2019
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A U.S. District Court in North Carolina will hear arguments in Kopitke v Bell on Thursday, November 7, at 2 p.m. This is the case that challenges various ballot access laws relating to independent candidates, including a challenge to the early March petition deadline for independent candidate petitions. The case is e.d., 7:19cv-164. The March petition deadline, as applied to independent presidential candidates, is obviously unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze, which in 1983 struck down Ohio’s March 20 petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. The North Carolina deadline is March 3, easily the earliest in the nation. The next-earliest is the Texas May deadline, which is also under court attack.

Until 2017, the North Carolina independent petition deadline was in mid-May. The 2017 session of the legislature moved it to early March.

John Conyers, First Member of Congress to Introduce Federal Ballot Access Bill, Dies

Posted on by October 28, 2019
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Former Congressmember John Conyers died on October 27, at the age of 90. He served in the U.S. House from 1964 until 2017. He was the first member of Congress to ever introduce a federal ballot access bill. He introduced it in 1985, 1987, and 1989. It would have capped the number of signatures for president and U.S. Senate at one-tenth of 1% of the last vote cast, and capped U.S. House petitions at 1,000 signatures.

The bill was never given a vote on the House floor, although in 1989 it did have 40 co-sponsors, including almost all members of the Black caucus. Tne New Alliance Party conceived of the bill in 1984 after running its first presidential nominee, Dennis Serrette, and learning how severe the ballot access laws are in some states. Attorneys for the New Alliance Party, Gary Sinawski and Harry Kresky, helped draft the bill.

Article One of the U.S. Constitution says that congress is permitted to write or supercede state election laws for congressional elections, and congress has passed many laws regulating federal elections. However, ballot access laws are still entirely a matter of state law.

Politico Story about New York Governor’s Hopes to Weaken or Destroy the Working Families Party

Posted on by October 27, 2019
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This extensive Politico story gathers the evidence that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to weaken or destroy the Working Families Party, even though he denies this. The article does not mention that there is reason to believe that the Governor will propose a bill next year to make the definition of “party” much more restrictive. The proposed bill is rumored to change the definition of a party from a group that polled 50,000 votes for Governor in the last election, to a group that polled 300,000 votes for Governor. That would leave New York with only two qualified parties, Republican and Democratic.