U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler, a Bush Jr. appointee, will hear Greater Birmingham Ministries v Alabama, 2:15cv-2193, n.d., on Thursday, February 11. This case was filed on December 2, 2015, and challenges Alabama’s law requiring voters at the polls to show certain types of government photo-ID.
U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte will hold a hearing in Soltysik v Padilla on Monday, March 14, at 10 a.m., in Los Angeles. This is the case on whether California’s law on partisan labels on ballots is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are registered Socialists, but if they run for partisan office, the ballot says “Party preference: none” next to their names. They want a label that says, “Party preference: Socialist.”
The Kentucky Democratic presidential primary ballot will list four names. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders qualified by demonstrating that they are already on the ballot in at least 20 other state primary ballots. Martin O’Malley qualified by showing that he has qualified for primary season matching funds. Rocky De La Fuente qualified by submitting 5,000 signatures. He turned in more than 10,000 signatures to meet that standard.
There is no Republican presidential primary in Kentucky this year. Instead the party will use a caucus.
On January 20, U.S. District Court Judge William Haynes set a trial date in two pending Tennessee ballot access cases. The trial date is Tuesday, February 23, 9 a.m., in Nashville. The trial combines the 2011 case that challenges the number of signatures needed for a newly-qualifying party, and the 2014 case on how a party remains on the ballot. The only undecided issue from the 2014 case is whether the ruling (which put the Constitution and Green Parties on the 2014 ballot) should also apply to put those two parties on the 2016 ballot.
The 2011 case over the number of signatures has been won twice in U.S. District Court, but each time the Sixth Circuit then said the case needs more evidence.
On January 25, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to even look at the cert petition filed in the Michigan ballot access case, Erard v Johnson, 15M76. The issue is the law that says newly-qualifying parties need twice as many signatures as old parties need votes to stay on. The Clerk of the court erroneously reported to the justices that the case had been filed a day late, and presented the case as one in which Matt Erard was seeking to be excused for being late. Erard, the Socialist Party pro se activist who filed the case, was not actually late, but it is not likely that any Justice, or any clerk for any Justice, read the actual account of why the clerk thought it was late.
In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Williams v Rhodes that it is unconstitutional for any state to require more support for a new party than for an old party.
