Virginia Republican delegate Nick Freitas, who wants to run for re-election in the legislative election of November 2019, is off the ballot due to having filed his candidacy paperwork in the wrong office. On August 2 the Virginia State Board of Elections turned down his appeal.
This story says he may be a write-in candidate in November. In 1989, a legislator was elected to the Virginia legislature by write-ins at the general election. Thanks to Daniel Sachs for this news.
C. L. “Connie” Gannon, Prohibition Party presidential nominee for 2020, has recently discovered a serious health problem that has led him to withdraw his candidacy. The party will choose a new nominee sometime soon.
On August 1, U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols set a new hearing date of August 29 in President Trump’s lawsuit against the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee and the state of New York. In the meantime, the state is ordered not to turn over the state income tax return. On August 29, New York will argue that this case cannot bind it, because it is filed in the District of Columbia. New York says the case should have been filed in New York state. Here is the order. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
On August 1, the Alaska Division of Elections ruled that the Libertarian Party is not ballot-qualified for president, even though that conclusion directly contradicts a 1987 Attorney General ruling, and the law has not changed since 1987.
Alaska has two categories of qualified party, those that are qualified for all office, and those that are only qualified for President. The latter is called a “Limited Political Party.” The Libertarian Party polled 6.05% for President in November 2016. A “limited political party” retains its status as long as it polls at least 3% for President. But the Elections Division says that because the party lost its status as a “limited political party” in 1992 (by polling less than 3% for president that year) it doesn’t make any difference that the party polled over 3% in 2016.
Here is the ruling. In footnote 3 it says the facts in the 1987 were different, but the only difference is that at that time, the party had always polled 3% for President, whereas now, the opinion depends on the fact that the party didn’t poll 3% for president in 1992. It seems unreasonable to pay more attention to what happened in 1992 than to what happened in 2016.
Here is the 1987 Attorney General’s Opinion, which put the Libertarian Party on the ballot for the 1988 presidential election because it had polled over 3% for president in 1984. When the 1987 opinion was issued, the party was not qualified for office other than president, which matches the 2019 situation.
It is likely that more lawsuits will soon be filed against the new California law that requires presidential primary candidates to reveal their income tax returns. At least one such lawsuit will probably be based on the California Constitution, which says that the Secretary of State will put “recognized” candidates for a party nomination on a presidential primary ballot.
That part of the California Constitution was interpreted in 1992 in LaRouche v Eu. A Superior Court in Sacramento ruled that Lyndon LaRouche was a recognized candidate for the Democratic nomination, because he had qualified for the Democratic presidential primary in other states that year, had been on the California Democratic presidential primary in 1988, and had raised some money for his campaign. This case shows that the Secretary of State does not have unfettered discretion to decide which candidates are “recognized”. Here is the 3-page LaRouche v March Fong Eu.
California put that into its constitution in reaction to presidential primaries during the 1960’s in California, when leading candidates chose not to file in California for political reasons. In 1960, Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy did not file in the Democratic primary in California because Governor Pat Brown asked them not to. In 1964, no presidential candidate filed for the California Democratic primary. In 1968, neither Richard Nixon nor Nelson Rockefeller filed in the California Republican primary, because Governor Ronald Reagan asked them not to.
