On July 16, former President Jimmy Carter said in a speech, “America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy”. See this story. In 2003, Carter said that he deplores Georgia’s ballot access laws, but that he saw no hope that they would change unless a court strikes them down.
On July 18, Tennessee appealed last month’s decision in Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett, middle district, 3:11cv-692. The U.S. District Court last month had struck down the number of signatures needed for a new party, and had also struck down the law that puts Democratic and Republican Party nominees on the top lines of the ballot.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has this book review in the New York Review of Books. The book Stevens reviews is “Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy”, by Gary May. Stevens’ review carries some strong criticisms of last month’s decision striking down part of the Voting Rights Act.
As reported previously, this year the Republican majority in the Arizona legislative sharply increased the difficulty for minor party members to get on their own party’s primary ballots, and also made it virtually impossible for smaller qualified parties to nominate candidates by write-in in their own primaries. This newspaper story quotes Arizona Republican State Senator Michele Reagan’s defense of the higher petition requirements. She says the change is not unfair because minor party members are free to get independent voters to sign their primary petitions.
The newspaper story also discusses the progress of the referendum petition; opponents of the new law hope to repeal it by referendum. One union has already contributed $50,000 toward the costs of getting the signatures.
Paul Carpenter, a regular columnist for the Allentown Morning Call, wrote on July 16 that Pennsylvania’s two major parties collude with each other. Specifically, grand jury testimony about the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has revealed that 60% of the contracts for work on the turnpike must go to contractors who have contributed to the party that holds a majority in the State Senate, and 40% to the other major party. Carpenter concludes that the two major parties do not see each other as adversaries, and that they have cooperated to block the rise of any new party. Thanks to Roy Christman for the link.
