April 4, a U.S. District Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, ordered Texas to produce internal legislative e-mails concerning the 2011 bill to require voters at the polls to show government photo-ID. The Judge said this evidence is needed to determine if one motivation for the bill was to make it more difficult for Hispanics to vote. The case is Veasey v Perry, southern district, 2:13cv-193. See this Brad Blog article about the court order.
On April 4, Georgia asked the Eleventh Circuit to stay its opinion in Green Party of Georgia v Kemp. The Eleventh Circuit had said earlier this year that a trial should be held in U.S. District Court over whether the state’s presidential ballot access law is unconstitutionally difficult. Georgia state government attorneys are so eager to avoid such a trial, they say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to cancel the order for a trial.
The state’s request for a stay says that the plaintiffs, including the Green Party of Georgia and the Constitution Party of Georgia, filed nothing to suggest that the parties could possibly win the lawsuit. The state’s claim is not true. The plaintiffs already filed evidence that no presidential petition has succeeded in Georgia (neither minor party nor independent) since 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court has said several times that when a ballot access law is so difficult it is seldom used, then it is probably unconstitutional.
On April 7, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded James v Federal Election Commission, 12-683, back to the U.S. District Court and told that lower court to re-do its opinion, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court McCutcheon opinion. James v FEC is a challenge to the amount of money that an individual can donate to all candidates for federal office. Virginia James was willing to accept the total ceiling on all contributions that an individual can make to federal candidates, political parties, and PAC’s put together, but she wanted to distribute the contributions so that her total contributions to all candidates exceeded the limit for all candidates combined.
It is obvious that she will win her case, given the more far-reaching decision last week in McCutcheon v FEC.
The April 7 Tulsa World has this editorial, suggesting that the legislature should pass HB 2134, the bill to cut the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 5% of the last vote, to 2.5%. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for the link.
On April 6, Nick Troiano formally announced that he will be an independent candidate for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s 10th district. The announcement was no surprise, because he had earlier announced that he was exploring running. Troiano was the youth director for Americans Elect in 2010-2012. He is 25 years old, and says his congressional campaign this year has already raised $30,000. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
