Montana Republican Party Moves Ahead with Lawsuit Against Open Primary for Public Office Nominations

Posted on by July 12, 2015
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The Montana Republican Party’s lawsuit against Montana’s open primary is active. The case was filed on September 8, 2014, and argued that the Republican Party cannot be forced to let members of other parties help choose its nominees for public office or party office.

The case had been diverted for a while because the party had decided the strongest part of its case concerned the law that forced the party to choose party officers in an open primary. However on May 5, 2015, a new law was enacted that says parties no longer need to use the primary to choose party officers. All sides agree that the part of the lawsuit concerning election of party officers is now moot.

But the party is pursuing the other part of the lawsuit, concerning nominations for public office. On June 4 the Republican Party identified the political science experts it will be relying on to show that non-members have been voting in Republican Party primaries. The state will identify its experts on July 14. The case is Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 6:14cv-58. The state Republican Party is a co-plaintiff, along with ten county parties.

Ohio Republican Party Paid $592,000 in Legal Fees to Keep Ohio Libertarian Gubernatorial Nominee off Primary Ballot in 2014

Posted on by July 11, 2015
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The Ohio Libertarian Party’s lawsuit over whether its gubernatorial nominee should have been on the 2014 Libertarian primary ballot is still proceeding, and discovery is still underway. It had already been revealed that the Republican Party of Ohio had paid $300,000 to the attorneys for the individual who challenged the Libertarian gubernatorial primary petition. New information has recently emerged that the party actually paid $592,000.

The new figure would not have emerged, if the Republican consultant for the Republican gubernatorial campaign had not brought forth the new information in his own defense. He and the Kasich gubernatorial campaign had been charged with not reporting these legal fees in campaign disclosure reports. The consultant than revealed that he and the Kasich campaign had not paid the $592,000; instead the Ohio Republican Party had paid them.

Last year, the state chair of the Ohio Republican Party had testified that the Republican Party had nothing to do with the challenge. See this story.

South Dakota Asks Court to Dismiss Libertarian-Constitution Ballot Access Lawsuit on Grounds that Case Isn’t Ripe

Posted on by July 10, 2015
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On July 9, the Secretary of State of South Dakota asked a U.S. District Court to dismiss the ballot access case that had been filed by the Libertarian and Constitution Parties on June 15. The case is Libertarian Party of S.D. v Krebs, 4:15cv-4111. The lawsuit challenges the March 1 petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. The state says that because the voters will be voting on whether to repeal that deadline, and the other parts of SB 69, the case should be dismissed, because no one can predict whether the law will be repealed.

The response of the political parties is due July 30, 2015.