The Nevada Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee will hear SB 499 on Tuesday, May 5. This is the bill that improves the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from April to June, and the independent non-presidential deadline from February to June.
On April 26, Colleen M. O’Toole, an Ohio State Court of Appeals judge, filed a federal lawsuit to overturn some Ohio restrictions on candidates for Justice of the State Supreme Court. O’Toole plans to seek the Republican nomination for that office in the March 2016 primary. She challenges several rules: (1) she cannot legally raise money for her campaign until November 9, 2015; (2) her campaign literature and signs must include the words, “Appeals Court Judge 11th district” if she refers to herself as a judge at all; (3) her campaign signs, if they use the words “elect”, “vote”, or “for” must be in the same size font as the words “Ohio Supreme Court”; (4) her campaign literature can’t use the word “judge” as a verb; (5) various restrictions on how she can personally ask for campaign contributions.
The case is O’Toole v O’Connor, s.d., 2:15cv-1446. It was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge James L. Graham, a Reagan appointee. O’Toole is one of four Republicans running for three seats. Her complaint points out that her three opponents already have sizeable campaign treasuries, because they ran for office before and retained some of the contributions from past campaigns. One of her incumbent opponents already has $250,826 and he is free to spend it now, wheeas O’Connor so far only has $119 and she can’t raise more until November. Here is the Complaint.
On April 28, Bernie Sanders said he will seek the Democratic Party nomination for President. Although he has run for office dozens of times in the past, it was always as a nominee of the Liberty Union Party, or as an independent candidate. He even ran for presidential elector in 1980 on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. See this story.
Earlier this year, a California PAC sent out literature in support of a Republican candidate for State Senate in the 7th district special election, and that literature used the Republican Party’s trademarked stylized elephant. The California Republican Party then sued in federal court, charging the PAC had violated the Republican Party’s trademark. The Republican Party did not support the candidate that the literature was intended to help. The case is California Republican Party v Asian American Small Business PAC, eastern district, 2:15cv-505.
There is little precedent over trademark law as related to political party names and symbols. However, both sides have told the court the lawsuit will probably be settled. This probably means the Asian American Small Business PAC will pay some undisclosed amount of money to the Republican Party, and in exchange the party will drop the lawsuit. Whether there is a settlement will be known for sure on May 4.
On April 28, the Sixth Circuit issued an 18-page opinion in Russell v Lundergan-Grimes, 14-6262, holding that Kentucky’s 300 foot “no political speech” zone around polling places on election day is too large. The U.S. District Court had come to the same conclusion last year.
In 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s 100-foot zone. In 2004, the Sixth Circuit had ruled that Kentucky’s 500-foot zone was too large. Kentucky then amended the law to 300 feet, but that amendment wasn’t good enough. The decision is by Judge Alie Batchelder, a Bush Sr. appointee; it is co-signed by two Bush Jr. appointees, David McKeague and Richard Griffin. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
