Each week, the Americans Elect web page reveals how many signatures have been collected nationwide. The latest tally shows 2,370,633, which is a gain of 57,554 during the preceding week. By comparison, the previous week had seen an increase of 60,042.
Alabama State Senator Cam Ward (R-Alabaster) has introduced two bills to improve ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates. SB 15 would reduce petitions for a previously unqualified party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote to 5,000 signatures, for statewide status. A party that wished to qualify in only part of the state would need a petition of 1.5% of the last gubernatorial vote in that particular district. SB 15 also reduces the number of signatures for non-presidential independent candidates from 3% to 1.5% (the independent presidential petition is already 5,000 signatures, and the bill would not change that).
SB 55 would eliminate all mandatory ballot access petitions, if the previously unqualified party or independent candidate paid a filing fee. The fee would be 2% of the office’s annual salary. The fee for presidential candidates would be capped at $5,000. Thanks to Joshua Cassity for this news.
According to this story, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum have all joined Rick Perry’s lawsuit against the Virginia ballot access law for presidential primaries. The court’s website does not yet reflect this filing, but that is probably because court employees, like employees of many government offices and non-government offices alike, worked reduced hours on December 30. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Congressional Quarterly has just published “America Votes 2010”, a 465-page book of election returns from each state for Congress and Governor. The book is the 29th in the series. A similar book is published every two years. The author, as in recent past years, is Rhodes Cook.
America Votes 2010 is the only reference book published so far that includes the Pennsylvania write-ins from November 2010. Pennsylvania permits write-in votes, but some counties of Pennsylvania fail to count any, and the state is very reluctant to include the write-ins in its official returns. Pennsylvania’s Department of State didn’t canvass them for four months after the election, and as a result, the other publications that include official election returns failed to mention any write-in votes. Other organizations that publish official election returns are the Federal Election Commission and the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Even America Votes doesn’t say who received the Pennsylvania write-ins. One reason Pennsylvania has so much trouble with write-ins is that it is the only large state that has no procedure by which a write-in candidate can file a declaration of candidacy. Therefore, the law requires Pennsylvania election officials to count and canvass all write-ins, even the silly ones. So, the result is that frequently, there is no canvassing of any write-ins at all. The minor parties that were left off the ballot in 2010 complained about this, but the federal courts said they didn’t have standing to complain about the policy, which was an absurd conclusion.
On December 30, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the state law that makes it illegal for corporations to spend money, disseminating messages supporting or attacking candidates for state office. See this story. The vote was 5-2. Here is the 80-page opinion. The majority opinion is 29 pages, and the dissents are 51 pages. The case is Western Tradition Partnership v Attorney General. The majority seems to acknowledge that its decision contradicts the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, but justifies this divergence from precedent by arguing that Montana has its own special reasons to block corporate speech.
The dissent by Justice Beth Baker quotes from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent book, “Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View”. Breyer wrote about the importance to our system of government that lower courts, and the executive and legislative branches of the federal and state governments, accept U.S. Supreme Court opinions, even when they disagree with those opinions.. The dissent by Justice James C. Nelson, which follows the Baker dissent and which is considerably longer, contains an impassioned criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but says that it is the law of the land. Page 40 contains a very earthy remark by Justice Nelson, rebutting the idea that Montana is “entitled to a special ‘no peeing’ zone in the First Amendment swimming pool”. Thanks to Justin Levitt for the link to the decision.
