Gatewood Galbraith’s campaign says it now has 5,000 signatures on its petition to be on the Kentucky ballot as an independent candidate for Governor on November 8, 2011. See this story. The signatures aren’t due until August, and the drive will continue until it has 10,000. He had been the Reform Party nominee for Governor in 1999 and had polled 15.4%. He will be the only person on the ballot this year (assuming he has enough signatures) for Governor, other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. We know this is true because Kentucky requires a declaration of candidacy in April for petitioning candidates for state (but not federal) office. Galbraith is the only candidate for Governor who filed such a declaration.

In 2010, Kentucky had been one of only five states with only major party nominees on the statewide ballot. The 5,000 signature requirement is not terribly difficult but Kentucky is a state in which the minor parties traditionally don’t get on the ballot in the odd-year gubernatorial election years. There has never been a Constitution Party, or Libertarian Party, or Green Party, nominee on the ballot for Governor of Kentucky. Currently the Libertarian Party is circulating a petition for State Treasurer.

On May 26, the Constitution Party of Kansas filed a notice of appeal in its lawsuit which seeks the ability to have voters in Kansas register as members of the Constitution Party (currently Kansas won’t let voters register as members of unqualified parties). The case is now in the 10th circuit.

On May 24, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party obtained an extension of time in which to file with the US Supreme Court, in its lawsuit over whether a party in New Hampshire has the ability to protect its name from being placed on the November ballot by candidates who were not nominated by that party. The case also involves the ability of an unqualified party to use a stand-in presidential candidate on its ballot access petition.

On May 27, the Massachusetts Libertarian Party filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case over whether an unqualified party may use a stand-in presidential candidate on its ballot access petition. UPDATE: here is the cert petition. Even if you don’t normally read legal briefs in election law cases, this one is worth reading. The text starts on the ninth page and is 28 pages long. The entire document is much longer than that, but that is because the lower court opinions are attached. The Libertarian Party had won the case in U.S. District Court but had lost it in the First Circuit.

Finally, in the 9th circuit case over Washington state’s top-two election system, the political parties’ briefs had been due May 23, but the parties have obtained an extension until June 6.

On May 26, a U.S. District Court ruled that the First Amendment protects the ability of corporations and unions to make contributions to candidates for federal office, up to the same limit that applies to individuals. Here is the 52-page opinion, United States v Danielczyk, 1:11cr85, written by Judge James Cacheris, a semi-retired Reagan appointee.

Two individuals are being criminally prosecuted for reimbursing their employees for the money they spent to buy tickets to a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Federal law says, “No person shall make a contribution in the name of another person.” All the pages in the decision prior to page 42 deal with the Defendants’ arguments that that law doesn’t apply to them. The decision rebuts those arguments, and upholds those parts of the indictment. But because count four of the charges against the Defendants alleges that they also broke the law that bans corporations from donating to candidates to federal office, the judge had to deal specially with that count. The judge ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban corporate donations to candidates (up to the relatively low limit that applies to individual donations) and struck count four from the indictment. That part of the decision is short and is on pages 42-46.

The famous Citizens United decision from the U.S. Supreme only struck down the ban on corporations and unions making independent expenditures. However, people who don’t like the Citizens United decision constantly say that decision struck down the limits on donations. For example, the New York Times of May 26 has an editorial that says, “Uber-PACs will compound the damage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that overturned restrictions against unlimited corporate donations.” That sentence is false. But because the New York Times and other critics of the Citizens United decision has alleged so many times that Citizens United applies to donations, these voices have inadvertently led the public to believe that corporations can already make donations, so the Danielczyk decision won’t appear very newsworthy.