Here is the California Secretary of State’s brief in Lindsay and Peace & Freedom Party v Bowen, 2:12-cv-853. This is the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in which the Peta Lindsay campaign and the Peace & Freedom Party challenge the Secretary of State’s refusal to list Peta Lindsay on the party’s presidential primary ballot.

Nowhere does the brief acknowledge that the PFP presidential primary is a “beauty contest”, not an election for public office. The purpose of the PFP presidential primary is to allow the party’s rank-and-file members to express themselves about whom the party should nominate for President. If the party were to nominate Lindsay, the Secretary of State would be forced to print her name on the November ballot. The State Court of Appeals already ruled in Keyes v Bowen, 189 Cal App 4th 647 (2010), “With respect to general elections, section 6901 directs that the Secretary of State must place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates.” The word “must” is in italics.

If the Peace & Freedom Party has a right to place a presidential candidate on the November ballot who is under the age of 35, it is difficult to understand why the party doesn’t have a right to place that same presidential candidate on its own primary ballot.

The Secretary’s brief says she follows the Constitution, yet in fact, she does not follow the California Constitution, which contains a one-year duration of residency requirement for candidates for the legislature. The Secretary of State ignores this constitutional provision. She has also told other courts, in lawsuits over whether she should investigate the qualifications of President Obama, that she has no duty to conduct such an investigation.

The Birmingham News of April 19 has this editorial, again urging the legislature to pass the ballot access reform bill, SB 15. The editorial focuses on the fact that recently the Republican Party state chair urged the legislature not to pass the bill.

One anomaly with the editorial is that the editorial writers believe the petition deadline is in June. Actually it was March 13, so the existing law is even worse than the newspaper believes it is.

Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, an economist and a presidential candidate in the Americans Elect process, says here that Thomas Friedman ought to run for President. Friedman has been writing op-eds for the New York Times for some time, urging someone like Mayor Mike Bloomberg to run for President. So, the question put to Friedman is a fair one.

Professor Kotlikoff’s column says that Ronald Reagan had no executive experience when he ran for Governor of California, but actually, Reagan had been president of an important union before he ran for Governor.