The Oklahoma ballot access case, Libertarian Party of Oklahoma et al v Ziriax, will probably have an oral argument during the first week in March. The plaintiffs, who include the Green Party, are seeking injunctive relief against the March 1 petition deadline for new parties. Here is the brief of the plaintiffs, in support of the motion for an injunction.
This lengthy newspaper story says that the Maine legislature is moving slowly to fix the state’s public funding program. The law must be amended, to take into account the U.S. Supreme Court decision Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v Bennett, which said that it is unconstitutional to give extra public funding to publicly-funded candidates who have well-funded privately-funded opponents.
On February 23, the Missouri House Rules Committee passed HB 1236. This is the bill that fixes a typographical error in the law. The error says that even though the petition to qualify a new party doesn’t need to list any candidates in general, it must list candidates for presidential elector (if that party intends to run a presidential nominee). The Rules Committee passed the bill unanimously so it is likely to pass the House on the consent calender soon.
There have been bills to fix this problem in the past, but in the past, these bills were merged in with other election law bills, and those other bills sometimes had unrelated controversial provisions, which caused them to either fail to get through the entire legislative process, or which caused a gubernatorial veto. So far, this year, the bill to fix the typographical error is being kept as a separate bill, which helps.
A California Superior Court in Alameda County will hear arguments in Rubin v Bowen on March 6, Tuesday, at 9 a.m. This is the case filed by the Peace & Freedom Party, Libertarian Party of California, and the Alameda County Green Party, against California’s “top-two” system. It concerns the essential characteristic of all top-two systems, that the system inevitably excludes all parties from the general election season and the general election ballot except for the Democratic and Republican Parties. The hearing is at the Alameda County Courthouse, 1221 Oak Street, department 16.
This case should not be confused with the older California lawsuits Field v Bowen, and Chamness v Bowen, which only attacked two particular aspects of California’s top-two system (the ban on counting write-ins, and the discriminatory policy on ballot labels).
On February 22, the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee defeated SB 377, which would have required petition circulators to sign under penalty of perjury that everyone who signed the petition showed government-photo ID. The committee vote was not recorded, but it seems the vote was 3-6. The three State Senators who voted for SB 377 are John Albers, William Ligon, and Buddy Carter.
This bill was defeated because five individuals showed up to oppose the bill. They are Garland Favorito of the Constitution Party, former independent candidate Faye Coffield, former independent candidate Ray Boyd, John Fortune, and Yasha Heidari, who was once attorney for the Georgia Ethics Commission. The bill was also defeated because many other individuals phoned Senators on the Committee, or sent e-mail, and asked them to oppose the bill.
One of the main points made by the witnesses was that if the bill’s author thinks petition forgery is a problem, the state should abolish mandatory ballot access petitions and rely on filing fees, as Florida as done. Under current law, petitioning candidates must pay very large filing fees (3% of the annual salary of the office); there is no real need to require any petitions. Thanks to Garland Favorito for this news.
