The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on March 25 whether to hear Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. This is the case that concerns Connecticut’s public funding law, which discriminates heavily against independent candidates and the candidates of new political parties. The U.S. District Court had struck down the discriminatory parts, but the 2nd circuit had reinstated them in a 2-1 opinion.
Medill Reports, publication of the Graduate School of Journalism at Northwestern University, has this story about Illinois HB 2010, authored by Representative Mike Fortner. His bill lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates substantially, although it makes the petition deadline somewhat more restrictive, and also shrinks the amount of time in which to collect the signatures.
The story also mentions HB 2009, also by Representative Fortner. That bill eases who may qualify to run in a partisan primary, by saying it is immaterial if someone who wants to run in a primary had voted in another party’s primary in the preceding year.
The Alton Daily News has this story about HB 2854, the bill by Representative Jim Watson to completely eliminate mandatory petitions, for candidates who pay a filing fee of 1% of the office’s annual salary. Also see this earlier story about HB 2854 in the Springfield newspaper, the Journal-Register (scroll down).
On March 8, the 11th circuit issued a 26-page opinion in Grizzle v Kemp, 10-12176. The decision upholds a 2009 Georgia law that says no one can run for local school board if the candidate has an immediate family member serving as the local school superintendent or as a principal, assistant principal, or system administrative staff in the local school system.
“Immediate family member” means a spouse, child, sibling, or parent or the spouse of a child, sibling, or parent. The lower court had issued an injunction against the law, but the 11th circuit reversed that. The basis for the 11th circuit decision is the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision Clements v Fashing, which ruled there is no fundamental right to be a candidate. Some courts have declined to follow Clements v Fashing because it has no majority opinion. There is an opinion signed by 4 justices, and an opposing opinion also signed by 4 justices, and then a single justice wrote separately. However, the candidate-plaintiffs in Clements v Fashing did lose the case, so one can say that it upholds the idea that the right to be a candidate does not exist. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the news about the Grizzle decision.
On March 9, Warren Redlich and Mark Axinn filed a lawsuit in state court against the New York State Board of Elections, over the ballot format in November 2010 and many previous elections. The lawsuit points out that section 7-104(3)(c), which describes the general election ballot format, says each party is to have its own column or row. However, in 2010, the Libertarian Party was squeezed into the same column or row as another political party.
The lawsuit, called Redlich v New York State Board of Canvassers, also explains that 7-104(3)(c) has not been followed in the past because the mechanical voting machines didn’t have enough space to give each party its own column or row. But, the lawsuit then explains, New York no longer uses mechanical voting machines, and therefore the ballot format used in November 2010 was illegal and the illegality had no justification. New York used paper ballots in November 2010.
The lawsuit asks that in future elections, 7-104(3)(c) be followed. Also, it asks that the court recognize that the New York Libertarian Party probably would have received 50,000 votes if the ballot had not been so confusing. To buttress that conclusion, the lawsuit also points out that the official election returns failed to record how many void votes were cast in New York city. The official election returns show 3,001 void votes for Governor outside New York city, but zero void votes within New York city. It is very likely that many voters voted both for Redlich and another gubernatorial candidate who was on the ballot in the same column, and these votes should have been recorded as void. Without an accurate record of the number of void votes, it is difficult to analyze what effect the ballot format had. The party received 48,386 votes for Governor, according to the official returns. It needed 50,000 to become a qualified party. UPDATE: the case has a hearing on April 8.
On March 1, the Oklahoma Senate Rules Committee passed SB 841, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The author is Senator Rob Johnson (R-Kingfisher).
