The Arkansas Democratic Party is carrying on a lawsuit to prevent former State Representative Fred Smith from appearing on its primary ballot. Smith wants to return to the legislature. See this story.
Reply
The Missouri Democratic Party has refused to place Herschel Young on its primary ballot as a candidate for U.S. House on the grounds that he was once convicted of a felony. See this story. The Missouri Democratic Party does not understand case law about congressional qualifications. The party says if he were elected, Congress would not seat him. This is incorrect.
The U.S. Supreme Court settled this issue in 1969 in Powell v McCormack, 395 U.S. 486. The U.S. House had refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell after he was re-elected in November 1966. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Congress does not have the power to refuse to seat someone who was elected and who meets the Constitutional Qualifications. Congress may expel a member who has already been seated, but Congress has never expelled anyone for doing something before the election; the expulsion power has only been used to expel someone for something done after he or she was elected. Young’s felony conviction was in 1995, for assault.
Use this link to see the CNN election returns from the Sunday, March 18 presidential primary in Puerto Rico.
Recently, the Republican Party of Bernalillo County filed a federal lawsuit against part of New Mexico’s law that provides public funding for candidates for some state offices. The lawsuit challenges the part of the public funding law that gives extra public funding to publicly-funded candidates who have well-financed opponents. There is virtually no chance this lawsuit can fail, because the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated extra public funding for this kind of candidate last year in the Arizona Free Enterprise Club decision.
See this story for the melodramatic story of how a Pennsylvania Democrat who tried to run for the state legislature this year was knocked off the ballot before anyone even checked to see if her petition is valid. The reporter says she “only” needed 300 signatures, implying that the requirement is easy. It is not easy. The typical State House district in Pennsylvania has approximately 20,000 registered Democrats, and they are the only voters eligible to sign. Furthermore, no one can circulate a primary petition in Pennsylvania if the circulator doesn’t live in the district.
Before 1985, candidates for State House needed 100 signatures to get on the ballot in a primary. The 1985 session of the legislature tripled the legislative requirement and increased the statewide petition by a factor of ten, from 200 to 2,000 signatures. Pennsylvania is also the only state that still has a county distribution requirement for statewide petitions, even though such county distribution requirements were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969. The Pennsylvania state courts repeatedly uphold ballot access restrictions that have been struck down in federal courts. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.