Hearing Date Set in North Carolina Minor Party Lawsuit Against May Petition Deadline

Posted on by April 12, 2012
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On May 8, U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen will hear Pisano v Bartlett, 3:12-192, in Charlotte. The hearing is set for 2 p.m. The case challenges the May petition deadline for petitions for newly-qualifying parties. North Carolina does not provide a primary for newly-qualifying parties, so there seems to be little state interest in requiring the petitions that early. The lawsuit was filed on March 27 by the Constitution Party, and on April 6, the complaint was amended to add the Green Party.

In 1988, the North Carolina State Board of Elections was so certain that the May petition deadline was too early to be constitutional, it set the deadline aside and accepted the petition from the New Alliance Party in mid-July. The statutory deadline has been in May since 1979. Originally it was in August, then it was moved to July in 1949, and to May in 1979.

Federal Election Commission Mulls Over Senator Feinstein Request for Relief from Contribution Limits, Postpones Decision

Posted on by April 12, 2012
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On April 12, the Federal Election Commission considered whether to let U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein raise more money from contributors who had already given her the maximum donation, for he re-election campaign this year. See this story, which says the FEC Commissioners spent considerable time talking about the case, but didn’t come to a conclusion. The FEC will consider the request again on April 26.

The reason for Feinstein’s request is that the money she raised originally was stolen by her campaign treasurer, and she has little hope of recovering more than a fraction of that money.

Democratic Congressional Candidate Files Federal Lawsuit Against Virginia’s Ban on Out-of-State Circulators

Posted on by April 12, 2012
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On April 4, Bruce Shuttleworth, a candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. House, 8th district, was told that he was 18 signatures short. He had submitted 1,823 signatures, but he was told that only 982 were valid.

On April 6, he filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, eastern district, complaining that his petition had been improperly rejected. Some of the signatures had been invalidated because one of his circulators lives in the District of Columbia. The Complaint does not directly attack the ban on out-of-state circulators, but does allege the ban is unconstitutional. The complaint also says, accurately, that after the district residency requirement was declared unconstitutional in Lux v Judd on February 8, there was no residency requirement whatsoever for petitioners. The old law said the circulator had to live in the district, and once it was declared unconstitutional, there was no law concerning the residency of circulators. When the legislature repealed the ban on out-of-district circulators, it added a requirement that circulators be Virginia residents, but the bills that did that, SB 613 and HB 1133 (identical bills) weren’t in effect when much of the petitioning was carried out.

Also, the complaint points out that even after the new law took effect, the State Board of Elections continued to give out misinformation.

On April 9, after the lawsuit had been filed, elections officials, working with Democratic Party officials, determined that Shuttleworth has enough valid signatures after all. Some of his petition sheets had been lost but were found again. It is not clear at this moment if the lawsuit will go forth. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney, who wrote earlier this year in Perry v Judd that an in-state residency requirement is almost certainly unconstitutional. But Judge Gibney also declined to put Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum on the Democratic presidential primary ballot because he said the candidates had filed their lawsuit too late. Thanks to Scott Thomas for this news.

Six Wisconsin Democratic Voters Ask Elections Officials to Remove “Insincere” Democratic Candidates from May 8 Recall Primary

Posted on by April 12, 2012
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On April 12, six Democratic voters asked Wisconsin election officials to remove six candidates from the May 8 recall primary, on the grounds that even though they obtained enough valid signature, they are running in Democratic primaries and they are not Democrats. Wisconsin does not have registration by party, so the complaint attaches news clippings to demonstrate that the six particular candidates are not loyal to the Democratic Party. Instead, the complaint says, the six candidates filed in the six recall elections (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and four State Senate districts) to make sure that Democrats have a primary for all six offices.

Recall petitions in Wisconsin, when successful, do not simply ask voters if the incumbent should be recalled. Instead, they trigger special elections, in which the recalled office-holder may run to retain the office. If there were no party primaries in these special elections, the special elections would be on May 8. But if more than one candidate from the same party files, then a special primary is held on May 8 and the special general election is held June 5. The complaint alleges (and no one disputes the allegation) that the motivation for some of the candidates who filed in the Democratic primary is to make sure there is a contested Democratic primary, which results in the special general election itself being a month later. Republican office-holders don’t want the special general elections in the State Senate races on May 8 because there is a bona fide Democratic primary that day for Governor, which is expected to attract a large Democratic turnout. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.