Mikhail Prokhorov has been put on the ballot for the Russian Presidential election, to be held in March. He is one of five candidates who qualified. He needed 2,000,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot, and he obtained them. See this story.
The Pennsylvania state courts, in the last decade, have been more hostile to minor party and independent candidates than any other state’s courts. They have upheld rulings of lower state courts that levy fees of over $80,000 against candidates who submit petitions that are held not to have enough valid signatures. They have upheld the district residency requirement for circulators in primaries, even though in 2002 a federal court in Pennsylvania struck down residency requirements for circulators working on general election petitions. The state courts even ruled in 2003, in the Zulick case, that state courts need not follow federal court rulings that strike down certain Pennsylvania ballot access laws.
Also, some Pennsylvania judges have participated in these election law cases despite having close ties to the attorneys on one side, and in the fee cases, they have taken no notice that petition challengers were state employees using state government resources for those petition challenges.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court continues to be embroiled in scandal. See this story.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson will hear Lux v Judd at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, January 25, in Richmond, Virginia. This is the case over the constitutionality of Virginia’s law, requiring circulators for U.S. House candidates to be residents of that U.S. House district. Judge Hudson, on August 26, 2010, had refused to enjoin this law, saying it was very likely to be held constitutional. The 4th circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court had then also refused injunctive relief.
But then, on July 6, 2011, the 4th circuit had issued an opinion in this case saying the U.S. District Court had improperly relied on an obsolete 1985 precedent, and that the case law has changed since 1985. The 4th circuit said “we can no longer say that an in-district witness requirement is necessarily justified by a state’s desire to gauge the depth of a candidate’s support.” The 4th circuit sent the case back to Judge Hudson to give the state a chance to come up with another reason for the residency requirement.
After that, on January 10, 2012, another U.S. District Court in the eastern district of Virginia ruled that Virginia almost certainly can’t even enforce an in-state residency requirement for petitioners. That ruling was in Perry v Judd. It will be interesting to see how vigorously the state defends the in-district residency requirement in the Lux oral argument. Anyone who lives near Richmond, Virginia, might enjoy attending the hearing.
On January 24, courts in two states issued rulings in favor of standing for ordinary citizens in election lawsuits. In Texas, the 5th Circuit issued this six-page opinion in City of Houston v American Traffic Solutions, 11-20068, ruling that proponents of a city initiative do have standing to intervene in a lawsuit over whether the initiative (which the voters approved) should take effect. The initiative blocks red-light cameras at traffic intersections. The lower court had refused to let the initiative proponents intervene.
Also on January 24, a Virginia state court ruled that citizens do have standing to challenge the authority of the legislature to pass a U.S. House redistricting bill this year. The State Constitution says the legislature must pass redistricting bills for U.S. House in the odd year following the census, but the legislature did not do that. The case is Little v Virginia State Board of Elections, CL11-5253, in Circuit Court in the city of Richmond. The court will now decide whether to draw the districts itself. A similar case on this point is also pending in federal court in Virginia. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news; his blog has a link to the decision.
The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that has been holding a trial over whether the Texas legislature’s districting bill for U.S. House and state legislature violates the Voting Rights Act has moved the closing argument date from February 3 to January 31. See this story. Thanks to Texas Redistricting blog for the link. This makes it even more likely that the U.S. District Court in San Antonio will wait for the outcome in the Washington, D.C. court before doing anything substantive. Alternatively, the San Antonio court has said that it would act quickly if the Democratic and Republican Parties of Texas agree on new districts, but this seems unlikely.
