On September 28, the Federal Election Commission asked the U.S. Treasury to send a second check to the Jill Stein campaign. The second check is for $160,389.13. The first one, received earlier, had been for $100,000. Here is the FEC press release.
One of the less-known federal campaign finance restrictions controls how much money anyone may give during a 2-year cycle to all federal campaigns combined. On September 28, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., upheld these limits. Here is the 15-page decision. The plaintiffs include an Alabama voter who wishes to give between $1,776 and $2,500 to dozens of different Republican congressional candidates. Another plaintiff is the Republican National Committee.
Current law sets limits of an aggregate of $46,200 to candidates and their authorized committees or more than $70,800 to anyone else. Of that $70,800, no more than $46,200 may be contributions to political committees that are not national political party committees. Therefore, the plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, may not give the maximum individual contribution to more than eighteen candidates, even though he wants to give to dozens more candidates. The decision says that the U.S. Supreme Court has, over the years, upheld existing contribution limits to political parties, and therefore the U.S. District Court will uphold this particular law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The mood strikes me to express my heartfelt gratitude to Eric Garris, who not only acts as the webmaster for Ballot Access News, but pays to have the page hosted, and is constantly on call to help me with technical problems. He, in turn, is helped by his assistant, Mike Ewens.
Various unscrupulous sellers of drugs have been hacking this web page, and Eric and Mike are taking very time-consuming steps to solve the problem.
According to this Facebook message, Oklahomans upset by the lack of choices on Oklahoma’s presidential ballot will hold a rally at the Oklahoma State Capitol on Monday, October 8, to publicize the problem. The Libertarian Party nominee for Congress from the 4th district, R. J. Harris, and the Democratic nominee for Congress from that same district, Donna Bebo, are among the speakers.
This is the third presidential election in a row in which Oklahoma voters are not permitted to vote for anyone for President other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. In order to find an example of any other state that tied the hands of voters this way for three elections in a row, one must go all the way back to the period 1956-1964. Oklahoma’s historical record for presidential choice on ballots is now almost as bad as Ohio’s record for the period 1952-1964. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 struck down Ohio’s ballot access laws precisely because Ohio had similar restrictions for four presidential elections in a row. Unfortunately, it appears most Oklahoma voters are unaware of their state’s deviation from the national norm.
Oklahoma is one of only five states that bans all write-ins. The others are Hawaii, South Dakota, Nevada, and Louisiana. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
See this Los Angeles Times story about Gary Johnson’s lawsuit, alleging that the Commission on Presidential Debates violates anti-trust law. That lawsuit is filed in U.S. District Court in southern California. UPDATE: also, see this PolicyMic article, which gives details of the activism being undertaken to change the Commission on Presidential Debates’ rule.
