The New York Times of December 7 has this story, explaining that seven states still have constitutional provisions that say atheists are not eligible to hold state or local office.
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The California Secretary of State’s “Statement of Votes” for November 2014 will be posted on her web page on Friday, December 12. Although the semi-official results are on the web page now, there is a lot of data that is not revealed in the semi-official results, especially regarding turnout and the number of blank ballots for certain races.
On December 3, the Illinois legislature passed SB 172, after deleting an amendment that would have injured ballot access. The bill expands election-day registration, and also increases the period of time in which early voting may take place. On December 2 the bill had been amended to delete the ability of qualified parties to nominate someone by party meeting (assuming no one had run in the primary for that party, for that office). But after that amendment got bad publicity in Gapers Block, an on-line Chicago newspaper, that provision was removed from the bill. Thanks to Phil Huckelberry for this news.
On December 5, U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg declared Arizona’s definition of “political committee” to be unconstitutional because it is vague and overbroad. Galassini v Town of Fountain Hills, 2:11cv-2097. The case began in 2011 when Dina Galassini was threatened with prosecution bcause she had e-mailed a group of friends and suggested they hold a rally to oppose a bond measure, and she had not registered as a “political committee.”
After she sued, the legislature amended the law to provide that a “political committee” must have spent or raised $250. The town and the state then argued that because Galassini had not spent or raised that much, her lawsuit is moot. However, she still won a preliminary decision on September 30, 2013, because the law still left her in danger. As the 2013 decision explained, if any one of the people who attended her rally raised or spent $250, the entire group would be in danger of having failed to report as a “political committee.” Filing as a “political committee” involves choosing a chair and a treasurer (who must be separate people), and filing numerous campaign finance reports, and printing “paid for by (followed by the name of the committee)” on all the communications of the group.
After the 2013 decision, Galassini resolved her differences with the town government, but the new decision of December 5, 2014, still finds the state law unconstitutional. The opinion is especially critical of the state’s definition of “political committee”, which is contained in a single sentence that is 183 words long. The decision says that the definition is far too vague and confusing to be constitutional. Thanks to Dan Tokaji for this news.
On December 6, Randy Fontenot, a registered member of the Constitution Party, defeated his Democratic opponent, in the race for Chief of Police for the City of Eunice. Here are the returns. Scroll down until you see “Chief of Police – City of Eunice”. Because the Constitution Party is not ballot-qualified in Louisiana, Fontenot had no label on the ballot. In the election returns he is designated as an “other” candidate, but that word does not appear on the ballot.
The margin was 59.7% – 40.3%. This outcome was not too surprising, because on November 4, Fontenot had polled 40% in a three-way race, ahead of the second place candidate, who had only polled 23%.
If the Constitution Party increases its registration in Louisiana to at least 1,000, and it then pays a fee of $1,000, it will become a qualified party in Louisiana. As of last month it had 185 registrants.