On June 26, the Washington Secretary of State filed this opening brief in the Ninth Circuit in De La Fuente v Wyman, 18-35208. The issue is the state law that says petitions to place an independent presidential candidate, or the presidential nominee of an unqualified party, can’t start to circulate until the group has run a legal notice in a newspaper, explaining where they will be petitioning.

The U.S. District Court had invalidated the law.

The state emphasizes in its appeal brief that many independent presidential candidates, and presidential nominees of unqualified parties, have managed to comply with the law. But in Anderson v Celebrezze, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Ohio’s March independent presidential petition deadline, even though many presidential candidates had complied with the March deadline. Footnote 12 of Anderson v Celebrezze acknowledges that in 1980 alone, five presidential petitions managed to comply with the March deadline, but that wasn’t enough to save the law. Also in 1976, five Ohio independent presidential petitions had also complied with the deadline.

The Militant has this article, describing persistent efforts by Florida prison officials to forbid inmates from receiving copies of The Militant, even though those prisoners are subscribers. Generally the newspaper appeals these decisions and wins, but the behavior persists.

The Socialist Workers Party is the only nationally-organized political party in the United States with its own print weekly newspaper.

On July 7, Jonathan Jenkins, well-funded independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, publicly explained why he didn’t submit any signatures on the petition deadline late last month. See this story.