On October 1, a 3-judge panel of the Shawnee County District Court ruled that the Democratic Party need not run anyone for U.S. Senate if it doesn’t wish to. Here is the 22-page decision in Orel v Kansas Democratic Party, 14-cv-958. The panel said the law is ambiguous, but in any event it would be far too burdensome on the Democratic Party if it were required to nominate someone this late in the process. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On September 30, Dan Cox, who was the Montana Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senate in 2012, won a federal injunction allowing him to publish a complaint he made about a state court judge some time ago. In Montana, if anyone files a complaint against a state judge with the Judicial Standards Commission, and the Commission decides that no action should be taken, it is a crime for the complaint to ever be made public. Cox v McLean, cv14-199. The federal court order says the Montana rule on perpetual confidentiality of charges against state court judges violates the First Amendment. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.
On September 30, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2351, which makes it easier for a group to qualify as a party in California, and also makes it easier for an already-existing party to remain ballot-qualified. The old law required an already-existing party to either poll 2% for any statewide in a general election, or to have 103,004 registrants (1% of the November 2010 turnout). The old law required a new party to obtain either 103,004 registrants, or submit a petition signed by 1,030,040 valid signatures.
The new law requires an old party or a new party alike to have about 60,000 registrants. Also, an old party can remain ballot-qualified if one of its members polls 2% for any statewide race in a midterm year, in the primary. The new registration requirement is exactly .33% of the total state registration. Currently the state has 17,634,876 voters, so currently .33% is 58,195.
California is the only state that eased the definition of “party” during 2014. During 2013, the only state that did so was Maine, which changed from requiring a petition of 5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to having 5,000 registered members. Before that, the last time a state eased ballot access for new parties and independent candidates, relative to the amount of support required, was in 2009, when West Virginia lowered the petitions from 2% of the last vote cast, to 1%.
As a result of the new law, the two states that require support from the greatest number of supporters to get on the ballot are North Carolina (89,366 signatures) and Oklahoma (66,744).
On September 29, the plaintiff in Strait v Fenumiai said he won’t appeal the decision of the Alaska state trial court. The trial court had ruled that if the state lets parties substitute a new nominee for Lieutenant Governor, then the state must let independent tickets have the same flexibility.
Bill Walker, independent candidate for Governor, had petitioned for a place on the ballot with a particular Lieutenant Governor running mate. Later that original Lieutenant Governor candidate withdrew and Walker added the Democratic nominee for Governor (who had withdrawn from the gubernatorial race) as his Lieutenant Governor running mate. The state elections office had accepted this change, but then a Republican Party official had sued to stop the switch. But the challenger lost in trial court, and he won’t appeal. See this story.
See this Cleveland Plain Dealer story, which describes how Republican Party campaign officials and party officers worked with state election officials to engineer a method to keep the Libertarian gubernatorial ticket off this year’s ballot. The trial is still proceeding on September 30. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for the link.
UPDATE: also see this story.
