Greg Sargent writes in the Washington Post about the unhappiness many Democratic Party activists feel toward the party’s debate rules.
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On September 22, the independent candidates who are challenging the Arkansas March petition deadline asked for reconsideration. Last month a U.S. District Court in Arkansas had said that early petition deadlines are constitutional if the number of signatures is small. That Court upheld the deadline. The case is Moore v Martin, e.d., 4:14cv-65.
The case has no effect on presidential independent deadlines. Independent presidential candidates in Arkansas have an August deadline.
The request for reconsideration points out that early petition deadlines are unconstitutional all by themselves, regardless of how many signatures are required. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 struck down the Ohio March petition deadline even though Ohio only required 5,000 signatures, which at the time was only one-tenth of 1% of the electorate. Furthermore, the Arkansas non-presidential independent candidate petition requirements are not easy. Arkansas requires 10,000 signatures for statewide office, which is about 1% of the normal vote cast in presidential years, and 1.5% of the normal vote in midterm years. Independent candidates for district office need petitions of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote within that district. Arkansas independent petition requirements are considerably more difficult than the median requirements of the 50 states.
Independent U.S. Senate candidate Greg Dorsey is currently challenging the Maryland law that requires him to get almost four times as many signatures as are needed for a new party in Maryland. The state is trying to get his case dismissed before a trial is held. Here is Dorsey’s response to that. The case is Dorsey v Lamone, 1:15cv-2170.
On September 22, the Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee held a hearing on SB 495, the ballot access bill. The Committee has eleven members but only two of them attended. Four witnesses spoke in favor of the bill. A law professor, Michael R. Dimino, testified against the bill, but he didn’t understand that if the bill were passed, minor parties with at least 5,000 registrations (approximately) would no longer need to submit petitions. He testified first, and then left, so he never even learned that his understanding of the bill is severely flawed.
Senator Mike Folmer, chairman of the committee and the bill’s sponsor, said at the conclusion of the hearing that action will be taken on the bill. Presumably that means he expects the bill to pass out of the committee. The reason attendance was so poor was that today is not a day when the legislature is in session, so most Senators were not in the state capital.
On September 22, the three minor parties who won in U.S. District Court in July against Pennsylvania’s ballot access laws asked the Third Circuit to summarily affirm that U.S. District Court decision. The issue is Pennsylvania’s unique system of putting petitioning groups at risk of paying huge court costs if their petitions don’t have enough valid signatures. The case is Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, 13-1952.
When the state filed its appeal with the Third Circuit earlier this month, it raised only procedural issues with the case. But now the minor parties are pointing out that those procedural issues were already raised in the Third Circuit in this same case in 2014, and the Third Circuit agreed with the minor parties that this case does not have procedural problems. Therefore, the minor parties ask the Third Circuit to terminate the state’s appeal summarily. If that request is granted, it is likely to be granted very soon.