Libertarian Party Will Attempt Tennessee Party Petition for the First Time

Posted on by August 20, 2017
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On August 20, the Libertarian Party national committee voted to help the Tennessee Libertarian Party get on the ballot for the 2018 election.  This will be the first time the Libertarian Party has made a serious attempt to qualify as a party in Tennessee.  The procedure, a petition signed by a number of voters equal to 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, is so difficult, no group has successfully used that procedure since 1968.  In 1968 the American Party completed the petition, to place George Wallace on the ballot.  Back in 1968 Tennessee didn’t permit independent presidential candidates, so Wallace was forced to do the party petition, which was then 5%.

Bills are pending in the Tennessee legislature to ease the procedure.  Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news.

Dick Gregory Dies

Posted on by August 20, 2017
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Dick Gregory, the last surviving presidential candidate from the November 1968 election, died on August 20.  He was 84 and was living in Washington, D.C.  He was the Freedom and Peace presidential nominee in 1968.  Here is a major obituary from the Los Angeles Times.  Thanks to Irv Sutley for the link.

Eighth Circuit Sets Hearing Date for Arkansas Libertarian Ballot Access Case

Posted on by August 18, 2017
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The Eighth Circuit will hear Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, 16-3794, on Wednesday, September 20, at 9 a.m., in St. Louis.  The Libertarian Party had won in the U.S. District Court, and the state is appealing.

The issue is the former law that said newly-qualifying parties (which nominate by convention) must choose all their non-presidential nominees in the year before the election, months before the major parties hold primaries to choose their nominees.

This government appeal is unprecedented.  The Arkansas legislature already changed the law to conform to the U.S. District Court ruling, and the problem no longer exists.  But the state still hopes to persuade the Eighth Circuit that the U.S. District Court decision was wrong.  In 49 years of ballot access litigation in federal courts, there has never before been any state which kept appealing the decision even after that state’s legislature corrected the law that had been held unconstitutional.

Fifth Circuit Agrees with U.S. District Court that Texas Can’t Limit Interpreters to Registered Voters of the Same County

Posted on by August 18, 2017
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On August 16, the Fifth Circuit issued an 18-page opinion in Organization for Chinese Americans v State of Texas, 16-51126.  The decision agrees with the U.S. District Court that a Texas law, requiring interpreters at the polls to be registered voters of that county, violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

The opinion is by Judge Patrick Higginbotham (a Reagan appointee), and is also signed by James Graves and Stephen Higginson, Obama appointees.  The Fifth Circuit did say that the U.S. District Court’s injunction was broader than it needed to be, and sent it back to have it re-written.  The U.S. District Court had believed that Texas won’t permit interpreters if a polling place official knows the particular foreign language and can interpret instead, but the Fifth Circuit said that is not a correct interpretation of Texas law, and furthermore that issue was not part of this lawsuit.

The individual voter who brought the case in the beginning, and who wanted her 16-year-old grandson to interpret for her, had died before the case was decided in U.S. District Court.  Texas argued that therefore the case is moot, but the U.S. District Court and the Fifth Circuit agreed that the co-plaintiff Organization for Chinese Americans also has standing.