Jill Stein has asked the Green Party national convention to nominate Cheri Honkala for Vice-President. Honkala was the Green Party’s nominee for Sheriff of Philadelphia in 2011. She founded the Poor People’s Econominc Human Rights Campaign. See this story. The Green Party chooses its national ticket in Baltimore on July 14.
On July 10, the California State Court of Appeals agreed to expedite Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v Bowen, C071506. This case, filed July 9, is a challenge to the validity of a law enacted last month that puts constitutional amendment initiatives on the ballot before other initiatives. California will have two initiatives on the November ballot raising state income taxes for certain taxpayers. The initiative backed by Governor Jerry Brown is a proposed constitutional amendment, but the other initiative, backed by Molly Munger, is not a proposed constitutional amendment, just an proposed new law.
Without the bill passed last month, initiatives would go on the ballot in the order in which the proponents submitted signatures. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers lawsuit says the new law’s emergency clause is invalid. Without the emergency clause, the new law could not take effect this year. Normally bills need two-thirds in each house to add an emergency clause, but this bill only passed with a simply majority. The legislature says the emergency clause is valid because the bill also contained an appropriation of $1,000, and therefore the bill is a budget bill and doesn’t need two-thirds to take effect immediately. The plaintiffs say the bill is not a budget bill. Here is the State Court of Appeals’ order, requiring the state to respond by July 30. Ballot measure numbers have already been assigned, so the court declined to issue a stay blocking the numbers from being assigned.
Andrew Straw, a Green Party candidate for U.S. House in Indiana’s Second District, and an attorney, is apparently going to sue Indiana over its ballot access laws. He apparently will base the lawsuit on the State Constitution, which requires that elections be free and equal. See this story.
Indiana is the only state with severely repressive ballot access laws in which there has been virtually no activism to change those laws. Indiana is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader never appeared on the ballot (the others are North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma). Indiana is one of only three states in which no statewide minor party or independent petition has been successfully completed during the last eleven years. Yet in Indiana, unlike the other bad states, there have been no bills introduced to ease the requirements, and no lawsuits since 1984.
Indiana’s legislature quadrupled the petition requirement in 1980, even though under the old law, Indiana never had a crowded ballot. The hostile 1980 change was not effective until 1984. The law requires petitions of 2% of the last vote for Secretary of State, which this year is 34,195 signatures. By contrast, no member of a major party ever needs more than 4,500 signatures to obtain a place on the primary ballot. For U.S. House, no major party member ever needs any signatures at all.
The Communist Party sued Indiana in 1984 in federal court, but lost the case. Indiana permits a group that polls at least 2% of the vote for Secretary of State to be on the ballot automatically. The Libertarian Party has met the vote test in Indiana in every election starting in 1994, so never needs to petition. Thanks to Ed Feigenbaum for the link.
Both sides have filed briefs in Townley v State of Nevada, in U.S. District Court, 3:12cv-310. Plaintiffs are voters, and two Republican presidential elector candidates, who argue that “None of the Above” must either be made binding, or must be removed from the ballot. Nevada prints “None of the Above” on primary and general election ballots for statewide office. But when NOTA wins, it has no effect.
The plaintiffs argue that the voters who choose NOTA are not being treated equally, because a vote for NOTA is a vote but the state isn’t giving that vote any legal effect. Here is the state’s brief, and here is the plaintiff’s brief.
Ed Harris, who won the Republican primary in South Carolina for State House, district 3, has been removed from the November ballot. The Republican Party now has no nominee for that seat. See this story. Harris is another one of the candidates who didn’t file a Statement of Economic Interests, both electronically and on paper, early this year. Almost 200 candidates for state and local partisan office were disqualified from the June 12 Republican and Democratic primaries, but Harris is apparently unique in being disqualified after he won a primary. The Republican Party says it should never have let him appear on the primary ballot.
Harris is petitioning to be an independent candidate, but the petition is due on July 16. UPDATE: see this article.
