The Lewiston, Maine Sun Journal has this story, on whether it is possible that the Libertarian Party might poll 5% for either President or U.S. Senate. If the party reached that threshold in either race, it would become ballot-qualified for the first time in Maine since 1991-1992. However, even if the vote threshold is met, the party would need to also organize a town committee in fourteen of the sixteen counties by the spring of 2013.

If the party does that as well, it would then remain on the ballot for the future if it could get its registration up to approximately 15,000. The law would require that it have at least 10,000 registrants who turn out to vote in the general election. It doesn’t matter whom they vote for, but they must vote. This rather strange law for party retention was passed a few years ago by the legislature, which wanted to accomodate the Green Party and find a means for it to remain ballot-qualified even though it might not choose to run a gubernatorial nominee.

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.