Mississippi elects all its state officers on November of the years before presidential elections. The Daily Journal of Tupelo has this article about some of the 2019 minor party and independent candidates.
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On August 6, the California Secretary of State filed this brief in the federal lawsuits over the new California law on presidential tax returns. Although there are several related cases, it seems simpler to refer to this case as Trump v Padilla, e.d., 2:19cv-1501. The brief relates to all the federal cases.
The state says that requiring presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns is not a qualification because any candidate is free to reveal the returns.
Previous cases have held that requiring federal candidates to take an oath that they do not belong to a group that advocates the violent overthrow of the government is unconstitutional. That type of oath has been held to be a qualification.
The California government brief says the difference between taking an oath, versus revealing one’s tax returns, is that anyone can reveal tax returns, but some candidates may not be able to take a loyalty oath in good conscience. That is a very tenuous distinction. One could say that President Trump can’t in good conscience reveal his tax returns.
The California brief also discusses one of the cases on whether forcing a candidate for federal office to be registered is or is not a qualification. That case is Schaefer v Townsend, a Ninth Circuit case that said California could not keep Michael Schaefer off the ballot (on the grounds that he wasn’t a registered voter in California) because forcing someone to register to vote is adding a qualification. The new California brief seems to suggest that Schaefer could not register in California because he was a registered voter already in Nevada. Therefore he wasn’t able to register in California (although he had homes in both states). Therefore, he was not free to comply. The brief says that is different than revealing a tax return because anyone is free to reveal a tax return.
But the California government brief does not discuss another case, Campbell v Davidson, 233 F.3d 1229 (2000), a Tenth Circuit case. In that case, a Constitution Party candidate for federal office in Colorado refused to register to vote. He lived in Colorado and was entirely free to register if he wanted to. So, there is really no difference between Doug Campbell and Donald Trump. They were or are both free to comply with the law, but they don’t want to. And Doug Campbell won his case in both U.S. District Court and the Tenth Circuit. Both courts said that requiring him to register to vote was adding an qualification and that the state was not permitted to do that.
The California government brief assumes that courts decide these cases with a balancing test. With a balancing test, the court must evaluate whether the restriction is needed, and also weigh how much harm the restriction does to the candidate. But the Ninth Circuit already said in Schaefer that in qualifications cases, the balancing test is not used. The Ninth Circuit said, “The Term Limits Court rejected such a broad reading of the Elections Clause and held the balancing test inapplicable where the challenged provision supplemented the Qualifications Clause and did not regulate a procedural aspect of an election or require a candidate to show a minimum level of support before running.”
Governor Janet Mills of Maine has worked out a plan to make it likely that Maine will use Ranked Choice Voting for president in November 2020, but not in the March 2020 presidential primaries. See this story. Thanks to Shawn Levasseur for the link.
Contrary to a post on this web page from yesterday, Delaware did file a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case over whether independents are able to be appointed to a state judicial petition. The name of the case is Governor of Delaware v James R. Adams, 19-309.
UPDATE: here is the cert petition.
Howard Schultz has formally dropped out of the presidential race. Although he had suspended his potential independent run several months ago, until now he had not said he won’t run. See this story.
The letter Schultz wrote says there is a danger that the Democratic nomination would not be decided until after independent presidential petitions are due. This is not true. There are only two states with an independent presidential nomination deadline earlier than June, Texas and North Carolina, and both are under court attack. The quote from the Schultz letter is below.
“Unfortunately, election rules in each state and the way this Democratic nomination process has unfolded pose another challenge: It has become more likely that the Democratic nominee will not be known before the deadlines to submit the required number of signatures for an independent to get on the ballot. If I went forward, there is a risk that my name would appear on ballots even if a moderate Democrat wins the nomination, and that is not a risk I am willing to take.”
Of course it is possible that the primaries might end with no clear determination as to who the Democratic nominee would be, but that would be extraordinary. The last primaries are June 2, 2020.