On April 20, the three Montana candidates for Congress, in the May 25 special election, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put them on the ballot. They had sued to overturn state law that required them to collect over 14,000 valid signatures in three days. The U.S. District Court agreed that the law is probably invalid, and said 400 signatures should be enough. But the U.S. District Court wouldn’t give any of the three candidates time to collect those 400 signatures.

The Ninth Circuit, without comment, refused any relief. In the U.S. Supreme Court, the case is 16A-1008. It is before Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has jurisdiction over such appeals from the Ninth Circuit. Montana is in the Ninth Circuit.

On April 19, Emidio Soltysik filed his 28-page reply brief in Soltysik v Padilla, in the Ninth Circuit. The issue is the California law that says some candidates for Congress and partisan state office may have their party label on the ballot, but others may not.

Soltysik makes good use of the recent Fourth Circuit opinion Marcellus v Virginia State Board of Elections, 849 F.3d 169, which said, “if a law gives some candidates…a party identifier, but not other candidates for the (same office), it would impose a burden on the associational rights of the candidates left unidentified, even though no candidate has an absolute right to be so identified.”

Page 19 of Soltysik’s brief says, “By providing a space on the ballot in which candidates for voter-nominated office can indicate their political party preferences, the State has created a limited public forum and the Court should apply First Amendment forum analysis. Having created a limited forum, the State cannot discriminate on the basis of viewpoint by allowing the expression of some party preferences, but not others.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Grimes, 16-1034, at its May 11 conference. The issue is the state’s definition of a qualified party, which makes it impossible for a group to become ballot-qualified unless it makes a certain showing in a presidential race.