On February 21, the California Appeals Court, 3rd district, will hear oral arguments in Fuller v Bowen, in Sacramento. This is the case over whether the California Constitutional provision, requiring candidates for legislature to have lived in their district for a year before running, should be enforced. The one-year residency requirement has been in the California Constitution since 1879. However, in 1975, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State decided not to enforce it, because, as they said, they believed that provision violates the U.S. Constitution.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1975 summarily affirmed a decision of a 3-judge court, upholding a 7-year residency within the state of New Hampshire for candidates for State Senate. Also, last year, the Third Circuit removed Carl Lewis, the Democratic nominee for State Senate in New Jersey, from the general election ballot because he had not lived in New Jersey for four years. And in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidacy is not a fundamental right, in a Texas case called Clements v Fashing.

Fuller v Bowen was filed by a Republican legislative candidate, Heidi Fuller. She met the residency requirement and she had filed the lawsuit to force the Secretary of State to remove one of her opponents, who, everyone agreed, had not met the residency requirement. Although the 2010 election is over, lawsuits like this are not moot.

On January 18, the 10th circuit heard arguments in Constitution Party of Kansas v Biggs, 11-3152. The issue is whether Kansas must let voters register into parties that are not ballot-qualified. The Kansas Secretary of State himself, Kris Kobach, is an attorney, so he went to Denver to represent himself. See this story.

In 1984, the 10th circuit ruled in a Colorado case that states must let voters register into unqualified parties, if those unqualified parties have been politically active in the state. That case was called Baer v Meyer. Since then, other courts have agreed, including the 2nd circuit in a New York case, the New Jersey state courts, and U.S. District Courts in Iowa and Oklahoma.

However, the argument seemed to go badly for the Constitution Party. Two of the three judges seemed to believe that Baer was wrongly decided, and they may overrule it.

On January 17, the Florida Secretary of State’s office posted new voter registration data for all the state’s qualified parties. One of the mildly amusing facts revealed in this registration tally is that Americans Elect, which is ballot-qualified in Florida, only has four registered members.

Americans Elect does not encourage people to register as members of the party. Americans Elect has its own privately-financed on-line presidential primary process, and any registered voter in the United States is free to participate. There is no need for voters to register “Americans Elect” to participate in the group’s activities. Florida law requires that the statewide officers of any party be registered members of that party, however, so Americans Elect had to make sure that its statewide officers were registered into the party.

On January 23, California will release a new voter registration tally, and it will be interesting to see how many California voters have registered “Americans Elect.” Americans Elect is a qualified party in California, and soon new voter registration forms will list Americans Elect as a choice. In the meantime, Californians have been free to register into Americans Elect, by filling out the “Other” line on the voter registration form and writing it in.