On October 18, the Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a brief in support of Ohio’s ban on out-of-state circulators, in Citizens in Charge v Husted, 2:13cv-935, s.d. The state says that the ban is needed because it has a short time frame in which to check the validity of petitions, and if it needs to subpoena circulators, if the circulator is out-of-state, that process would take a long time.

This is illogical for several reasons. The most important is that Ohio doesn’t need to subpoena circulators, whether in-state or out-of-state, to check the validity of petition signatures. Furthermore, Ohio law already permits out-of-state circulators to work on independent presidential candidate petitions, and the state’s brief doesn’t explain how Ohio copes with checking that type of petition.

Also, the brief hints that out-of-state circulators who work on initiative petitions are interfering with the ability of Ohio residents to decide their own policies without outside interference. And the brief says there is a reasonable chance that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Virginia’s pending appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar issue. Of course, even if the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear that case, it would not be decided until mid-2014, and in the meantime, the Ohio plaintiff that is trying to circulate an initiative petition would not have the benefit of a decision for the next nine months, and would not be able to qualify its initiative for the 2014 ballot unless it used only in-state circulators.

On October 18, U.S. District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton rejected a request from the Virginia Democratic Party for a halt to a purge of voters for which there is evidence that they are also registered in other states. See this story. The case is Democratic Party of Virginia v Virginia State Board of Elections, 1:13-1218, e.d.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Worley v Detzner at its November 1 conference. The Court will probably say on November 4 whether it will hear this case. The issue is a Florida campaign finance law that forces groups that spend as little as $500 on supporting or opposing an initiative to form a political committee or a PAC. Here is the cert petition, 13-333.

Four individuals wanted to each contribute $150 to buy radio ads opposing a statewide initiative that was on the ballot in 2010, but they were not able to do that without setting up a political committee, which requires extensive financial reports on a periodic basis. Florida has draconian fines for any political committee, or other group, that fails to strictly comply with financial report rules.