Randy Evans, a Georgia attorney who served as a counsel to the Speakers of the U.S. House 1994-2006 (years of Republican control) has this article in Atlanta Business Journal, suggesting the idea that Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul might each run for president in 2016 outside the two major parties.
On June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in City of Los Angeles v Patel, 13-1175. This is not an election law case, but it has useful implications for election law challenges. The case concerned a Los Angeles ordinance that requires all hotels to keep a complete record of check-in information for all guests, and to turn it over to the police at any time the police want it, with no need for a warrant. The hotel-keeper who brought the case won, and the Los Angeles ordinance is unconstitutional on its face.
Ever since the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Washington state top-two state, which made it more difficult to have laws declared unconstitutional on their face, it has been more difficult for plaintiffs in election law cases to win. States typically now try to defend ballot access restrictions by saying they are not unconstitutional on their face. This forces the plaintiffs to submit a great deal of evidence to show that the restriction is unconstitutional as to those particular plaintiffs. This is how Arkansas, for example, is able to claim that its early petition deadlines are not unconstitutional on their face, even though those same deadlines had already been held unconstitutional repeatedly in the past.
Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writing the decision in the Los Angeles case, wrote, “The proper focus of the constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.” Applying this to the ongoing Arkansas case over early deadlines, this means the lower court should not be influenced by the fact that certain independent candidates might have had no trouble with the early deadline, and should only look at the candidates who did have trouble with it.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not issue any election law decisions on June 22, but will release some opinions on Thursday, June 25, as well as Monday, June 29.
Counterpunch has this article by Robert David Steele of Virginia.
TIME Magazine has this story about the lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission that will be filed on Monday, June 22. The plaintiffs will include the Libertarian and Green Parties, and also some of the leading figures from Americans Elect. The lawsuit charges that the FEC has broken its own rules by refusing to consider the petition for a rule concerning general election presidential debates.
The attorney for the lawsuit is Alexandria Shapiro. This is not the lawsuit that has been planned for some time by former Governor Gary Johnson’s Our America Initiative. That lawsuit would have sued the Commission on Presidential Debates directly.
The Nevada legislature adjourned earlier this month. Among the election law bills that failed to pass was SB 434, which would have made it more difficult to qualify a statewide initiative. Here is the text of the bill. Section 4 of the bill said that before a statewide initiative could begin to circulate, the sponsors had to submit the signatures of 1,000 registered voters who support the initiative. Only after the 1,000 signatures had been submitted and verified could the initiative itself begin to circulate. The names of the 1,000 voters who had signed the “pre-initiative” petition would not be counted as having signed the initiative petition itself. The bill passed the Senate but did not advance in the Assembly. It garnered most of its support from Republican legislators. Thanks to Janine Hansen for this news.
