On October 18, U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson struck down California’s procedure for a newly-qualifying party to get on the ballot. The 16-page decision is California Justice Committee & Constitution Party v Bowen, cv 12-3956, central district. The basis for the decision is that the deadline is so early. In 2012, it was January 2.
The decision was not a big surprise, because Judge Anderson had enjoined the deadline on May 22, 2012. This decision will help to win pending lawsuits against early deadlines in Alabama, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Vermont. UPDATE: here is the ACLU press release about the decision. This case was handled by the ACLU of Southern California.
On October 15, U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell ruled that the U.S. Postal Service must tell the California state campaign finance enforcement agency how many pieces of mail a particular candidate mailed. The California agency, the Fair Political Practices Commission, believed that William Eisen broke some California campaign finance laws when he mailed 200 pieces of mail to voters. But the Fair Political Practices Commission needed proof of the number of pieces mailed, and asked the U.S. Postal Service to reveal that information. The Postal Service refused, so the California agency then sued the postal service and won the case. Fair Political Practices Commission v U.S. Postal Service, 2:12-cv-93.
The Postal Service had argued that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply in this instance because the act has an exemption for information concerning commerce. The Postal Service also argued that if it had to disclose such information, future candidates would shun using the postal mail and instead use private delivery services. If the candidate had used a private delivery service, the Freedom of Information Act would not have applied. But the decision says that there are no private delivery services for mailings of this type.
Marion County, Florida, is holding a partisan election for Sheriff next month. The only two candidates named on the ballot are the Constitution Party nominee, Bernie DeCastro, and a Republican. However, the Republican whose name is on the ballot has withdrawn because of a scandal. Votes for the Republican listed on the ballot will be counted for another particular Republican chosen by the local Republican Party. But, many voters probably won’t want to vote for the Republican whose name is listed on the ballot, even though there will be a sign at each polling place explaining that votes cast for the withdrawn Republican will be credited to another Republican.
Uncovered Politics explains this in greater detail. Here is a link to the Uncovered Politics story.
Marion County is in central Florida, and has a population of 316,183. The county seat is Ocala.
A new political party named the Democratic-Republican Party was formed in New Jersey earlier this year. It successfully petitioned to place a U.S. Senate nominee, two U.S. House nominees, and four nominees for county office, on the ballot. However, the state refuses to place the party name of these candidates on the November ballot. Instead, the state says they will have the label “No slogan” printed on the ballot next to their names.
The party sued, but on October 10, a U.S. District Court Judge refused injunctive relief. The case is Democratic-Republican Party v Guidagno, 3:12-cv-5658.
The state says voters would be confused if a party with that name were permitted on the ballot. However, almost all New Jersey counties use a party column ballot, in which the Democratic nominees are all in one column headed by “Democratic”; Republican nominees are treated the same; and all other candidates are squeezed into columns headed “By petition.” New Jersey defines “political party” to be a group that polled 10% of the statewide vote for its nominees for lower house of the legislature. This definition has been in place since 1920 and since then no party other than the Democratic or Republican Parties has ever enjoyed status as a “political party.” Given that all the major party nominees are in their own party columns, it is extremely unlikely that any voter would be confused with the label (in tiny print) next to the names of the party’s candidates, since they are all in the “By petition” column.
The party’s nominee for U.S. Senate is Eugene LaVergne. Its U.S. House nominees are Fred LaVergne in the 3rd district, and Leonard Marshall in the 4th district. The party has two freeholder candidates in Burlington County and also two in Ocean County.
