In 2011, the Illinois House passed HB 2009, which says that no one who voted in a primary, or who filed a declaration of candidacy to run in a primary (but who then chose not to run in that primary), can then be an independent candidate in November. The law applies to all partisan office. The bill then languished in a Senate committee for almost a full year.

Illinois held its primary this year, for president and all other office, in March 20, 2012.

Then, on March 27, HB 2009, which had long been forgotten, was shifted to another Committee in the Senate. On March 29 it passed the Senate 53-3. Governor Pat Quinn signed it the next day. It has an urgency clause so took effect on March 30. So now anyone who voted in the Democratic or Republican primary on March 20 this year cannot run for any partisan office in November as an independent candidate.

This maneuver almost certainly violates due process. It is fundamentally unfair to pass a law that adversely affects primary voters after the primary is over and to make it effective so that it affects this year’s general election.

Illinois does not have registration by party. If this law had been in effect in 1980, it would apparently have prevented John B. Anderson from getting on the ballot as an independent candidate, since he voted in the March 1980 Republican presidential primary. He didn’t declare as an independent until April 24, 1980.

The Bar Area Reporter, northern California’s largest gay publication, has this story on Stephen Durham, presidential candidate of the Freedom Socialist Party. The Bay Area Reporter always gives extensive coverage to major party stories, but seldom runs articles of this length about minor party candidates. Durham is gay and is apparently the only self-identified gay person running for President in the general election this year.

Alan Woodruff, an attorney in northeastern Tennessee, will be the Democratic nominee for U.S. House this year in Tennessee’s First District. He is the only person who filed for the Democratic nomination. The First District is considered a stronghold for the Republican Party. In 2010 the Democratic nominee in this district polled 17.1% and the Republican nominee, Phil Roe, polled 80.8%.

Woodruff is the attorney for the pending lawsuit Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett, which won in U.S. District Court on February 3, 2012. The decision of the U.S. District Court not only struck down the Tennessee ballot access law for newly-qualifying parties, it resulted in the Green Party and the Constitution Party being placed on the 2012 ballot. Woodruff is defending this decision in the 6th circuit, where the state has asked for a stay of the order that put those two parties on the ballot.

Woodruff had also won parts of a ballot access decision against three New Mexico laws earlier, including striking down the law that forbids parties from nominating someone who has not been a member for the preceding several months, if the party in question does not desire that restriction on itself. Woodruff also was instrumental in lobbying the 2011 session of the New Mexico legislature for some favorable ballot access changes, including a later petition deadline for independent candidates, and a reduction in the number of signatures needed for newly-qualifying parties in midterm years.