On September 21, Gary Johnson, his running mate James Gray, and the Johnson-Gray Campaign filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the central district of California against the Commission on Presidential Debates, the Democratic National Committee, and the Republican National Committee. The lawsuit alleges that the Commission on Presidential Debates and the two major parties are restraining competition. To answer the complaint that anti-trust law only relates to business, the complaint points out that the salary of the president is $400,000, and that Johnson is seeking to obtain the job of President, so economics is involved. The case is Johnson v Commission on Presidential Debates, cv-12-01600. Here is the complaint.

The case is assigned to Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, a Bush Jr. appointee. He has only had one previous case involving a minor party. He heard Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County v Bowen, a case against California’s restriction on out-of-district petitioners. In that case, he ruled that because the Secretary of State says she doesn’t enforce the law, therefore the plaintiffs lack standing to sue to overturn it. The Ninth Circuit took a somewhat different view, sending the case to arbirtration and signaling that if the arbitration doesn’t result in significant changes in state policy, the law will be held unconstitutional.

The lawsuit says that any presidential candidate on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the presidency must be included in the debates. The venue is proper because James Gray lives in the central district of California. The attorney for the case is Paul Jensen. The lawsuit was filed a few hours after the Commission on Presidential Debates formally said only President Obama and Mitt Romney may participate in the first two debates. Here is the Commission’s announcement. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news.

On September 21, the California Secretary of State released a new voter registration tally. See the full report here. The tally is as of September 7.

Compared to the last tally (the May 21, 2012 tally), every qualified party has a slightly smaller share of the registration now than it did in May, except for the Libertarian Party. The percentage of voters registered “no party preference” also declined slightly, but the number registered in other, unspecified parties grew.

The percentages for each party, for May 2012, and then September 2012, are:
Democratic 43.39%, 43.33%
Republican 30.24%, 30.11%
American Independent 2.53%, 2.52%
Green .646%, .634%
Libertarian .546%, .548%
Peace & Freedom .349%, .343%
Americans Elect .018%, .017%
all non-qualified parties .98%, 1.22%
No Party Preference 21.31%, 21.28%

Registration data is available for the unqualified parties that have told the Secretary of State that they are attempting to qualify. The Reform Party now has 20,362 registrants. The last tally available for it was in January 2012, when it had 20,722. There is no May tally for the Reform Party because at the time it hadn’t asked for a tally.

The Constitution Party now has 252 registrants, up from 121 in January 2012, and 207 in May 2012.

The Justice Party now has 237 registrants, up from 183 in January 2012. There is no May tally for the Justice Party.

It is somewhat surprising that the Americans Elect registration declined. It went from 3,030 registrants in May, to 2,998 in September. One would have expected it to grow because it wasn’t printed as a choice on voter registration forms in May, but it is now, although some counties are probably still using old forms that don’t include it.

On September 14, Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Md.) introduced HR 6426, which provides public funding for candidates for Congress. Candidates for U.S. House would qualify by raising contributions privately from at least 2,000 individuals, at least half of whom must live in the district. The total would need to be at least $50,000 in private contributions. Here is the text of the bill.