On April 27, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Crow, a semi-retired Reagan appointee, upheld Kansas’ policy of providing no write-in line on voter registration forms, concerning the voter’s choice of political party. Constitution Party of Kansas v Biggs, 10-4043. Here is the 17 page opinion. The Constitution Party is not ballot-qualified in Kansas but has placed nominees on the ballot through the independent candidate procedure.

The 10th circuit had ruled in 1984 that Colorado must provide write-in space on voter registration forms, so that voters could register as members of unqualified parties. Kansas is in the 10th circuit, so Judge Crow should have followed the 1984 decision, which is called Baer v Meyer. But, he said that if Kansas showed a blank line on the voter registration form, the voter filling in the form might have bad handwriting and it would be difficult for election officials to understand what the voter had written. This is not a good argument, because the same thing could be said about the voter’s address on the form, but somehow Kansas officials manage to cope with reading handwriting for addresses and other hand-written entries on the form. Also, Judge Crow said letting voters register into an unqualified party would make extra work for elections officials.

Ironically, the Libertarian Party of Kansas had filed a similar lawsuit in 1987, when it wasn’t a qualified party, and it had won the case. Kansas conceded the case, which was called Merritt v Graves, and started printing a blank line on voter registration forms so that voters could register as members of an unqualified party. But, then, in late 1990, the Libertarian Party successfully petitioned to become a qualified party, so the state then stopped printing the blank line on the voter registration forms. Judge Crow did not mention Merritt v Graves. The Constitution Party will probably appeal.

On April 27, President Obama made public his birth certificate, which can be seen here. It will be interesting to see if the bills still pending in a few state legislatures, to require presidential birth certificates, continue to advance or not. The two bills that had seemed more likely than the others to pass are Oklahoma’s SB 91 and Louisiana’s HB 561.

Bills have been introduced in Guam’s legislature, and also in the legislature of the Northern Mariana Islands, calling for a popular vote in each territory on whether the two should be reunified. See this story. Thanks to Michael Richardson for the news.

The two adjacent territories have not been united politically since Spain owned both of them. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States required Spain to cede Guam. The United States was not especially interested in owning the other northerly islands in the same chain, so Spain sold the Northern Mariana Islands to Germany. During World War I and its aftermath, Germany lost them to Japan. Japan conquered Guam in World War II momentarily. After the war, the United States regained Guam as a territory, and the Northern Mariana Islands became a U.N. trusteeship under the direction of the United States. Later, the trusteeship was dissolved, and the Northern Mariana Islands became a commonwealth of the United States, similar in status to Puerto Rico. Both Guam (an unincorporated territory) and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands send a non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House.