CNN has this interesting interview with Ron Paul, on the national Republican convention rule that says only a candidate who has a majority of the delegates in 8 states or territories may be placed in nomination by a nominator speaking from the stage. It is widely believed, without contradiction, that the rule was passed in 2012 to prevent anyone from giving a speech from the podium to nominate Paul.
The briefs in Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Grimes, e.d., 3:15cv-86, are due by April 7. The case is being expedited. The issue is whether the state’s definition of “political party” is too restrictive. In the last 100 years, only four groups, besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, have qualified for party status in Kentucky: the Progressive Party 1924-1928, the American Party 1968-1972, the Anderson Coalition Party 1980-1984, and the Reform Party 1996-2000. The definition is a group that polls at least 2% for President in Kentucky.
Kentucky and Washington state are the only two states in which it is impossible for a group to become a qualified party unless it makes a certain showing in a presidential election. The plaintiffs are the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party.
On April 18, U.S. District Court Judge William B. Shubb will hear Independent Party v Padilla, e.d., 2:16cv-316. The party is seeking a preliminary injunction to ask the Secretary of State to determine how many registered voters it has. In California, parties become ballot-qualified if they have approximately 60,000 registered members. Normally when a group wishes to become a party, it asks the Secretary of State to work with the counties and find out how many registrants it has. But the California Secretary of State has refused to ask county election officials to tally the number of members of the Independent Party, on the grounds that the Independent Party is an impermissible party, because its name is too similar to the American Independent Party.
The court hearing will be in Sacramento.
The Independent Party is entitled to its own presidential primary in Oregon. This is the first time Oregon has ever held a presidential primary for a party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, except it is possible Oregon held one for the Progressive Party in 1916.
On March 16, the Oregon Attorney General ruled that the Independent Party ballot will not have any presidential candidates’ names. But there will be a presidential primary ballot for the party, and all write-ins will be tallied. Because the Independent Party is the only party that allows independents to vote in its primary, and because the Independent Party itself has over 110,000 registered members, there will almost certainly be tens of thousands of write-ins to count.
The Independent Party wanted the Secretary of State to list all the presidential candidates whose names are on the Democratic and Republican ballots, and Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Michael Bloomberg as well. But the Oregon law says that candidates should be on presidential primary ballots automatically only if newspapers mention their candidacies for a particular party. Because there are no newspaper stories that say any of those presidential candidates are seeking the Independent Party nomination, the state won’t list those candidates.
State officials also say that the presidential candidate who gets the most write-in votes will be the Independent Party’s nominee in November, regardless of the wishes of the state party officers. This part of the ruling seems contrary to law, and it is not known if the Independent Party will accept that ruling or not.
On March 9, U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions upheld restrictions on Vermont candidates who qualify for public funding, but acknowledged that many details of the restrictions are still murky. Judge Sessions says that if a Vermont state court proceeds with punishment for Progressive Party candidate Dean Corren, that Corren is free to re-file his case in federal court.
Dean Corren was the Progressive Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2014. The state fined Corren $20,000, and ordered him to repay $52,000 of public financing, because the Democratic Party (which supported Corren) had sent out a mass e-mail inviting Democrats to come to a rally at which Corren, along with other candidates who weren’t Progressives, were speaking. The state believed that the e-mail was an illegal campaign contribution.
Judge Sessions wrote, “Testimony before the Court revealed confusion on all sides as to what the law allows, and whether political parties in particular can play a role in publicly-financed campaigns.” He noted that a state court is considering whether the fine against Corren is proper or not. Judge Sessions wrote that in his opinion, the law “allows candidates to communicate freely with, and receive meaningful assistance from, their supporters. Political parties in particular may provide public-financed candidates with office space, voter lists, training sessions, and other forms of traditional party support without violating any statutory restrictions.” Therefore, if the state court upholds Corren’s fine, it is very likely a new federal case will countermand the fine.
Judge Sessions upheld the part of the public financing law that says publicly-financed candidates may not announce their candidacy before February 15 of an election year. That issue was in the lawsuit because a 2016 Progressive candidate, David Zuckerman, had intervened in the case to raise that point. As a result of that outcome, Zuckerman will not try to qualify for public funding. The case is Corren v Sorrell, 2:15cv-58.
