On June 18, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion in Libertarian Association of Massachusetts v Secretary of the Commonwealth, 2011-348. The unanimous ruling says that Massachusetts law does not permit an unqualified party, or an independent candidate, to engage in substitution. If a candidate for president, or vice-president, or even presidential elector, who was named on the petition, dies or withdraws, the petition is invalid and the proponents must start all over. If the death or withdrawal is after the deadline for the petition to be submitted, there is no remedy.

The decision says that the law “does not impose a significant burden.” It says the ability of a qualified party to make a late decision about who its presidential and vice-presidential nominees are is a “privilege” of being a qualified party. Footnote 28 says unqualified parties who fail to gain ballot access are always free to carry on a write-in campaign in November.

Footnote 9 admits that in the past, the Massachusetts Secretary of State let the U.S. Taxpayers Party substitute a new nominee in 1996, and let the Reform nominee do this in 2000. The footnote does not mention that the Secretary of State also let John B. Anderson substitute a new nominee for vice-president in 1980, and let Ralph Nader do so in 2004. In any event, it appears that what the Secretary of State did that was helpful in those past elections cannot happen again. The decision says the only recourse is for the group or independent candidate to start an entire new petition, if the original petition’s nominee for President or Vice-President changes while the first petition is underway.

If Americans Elect were still involved in running a presidential nominee this year, this decision would be utterly hurtful to Americans Elect.

Now that unqualified parties in Massachusetts have lost this case, it may be possible for unqualified parties to successfully challenge the only method by which unqualified parties can become qualified parties in advance of any particular election. That procedure requires the group to persuade voters equal to 1% of the registration to register into that party, no later than November of the year before the election. By every precedent, a deadline that early is unconstitutional.

This poll shows that Angus King is overwhelmingly ahead in the U.S. Senate race in Maine this year. King is an independent candidate. No independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Maine has ever before received as much as 10% of the vote. Assuming King is elected, and assuming Bernie Sanders is re-elected in Vermont as an independent this year, that will make five instances in which someone who was not the Democratic or Republican nominee has won a U.S. Senate race in the period 2006 through 2012.

The other three were Lisa Murkowski in 2010, and Sanders and Joseph Lieberman in 2006. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.

The U.S. Supreme Court considered whether or not to hear American Tradition Partnership v Bullock at its June 14 conference. But, on the morning of June 18, the Court did not release any decision about whether it will hear the case. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider that case again at its June 21 conference. If it makes a decision at the June 21 conference, the public won’t hear what was decided until June 25.

The case arose in Montana. On December 30, 2011, the Montana Supreme Court had upheld that state’s ban on independent expenditures by corporations and unions, even though the Montana Supreme Court’s opinion seems to contradict the U.S. Supreme Court 2010 decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. The people who had sued Montana are now hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the Montana Supreme Court.