The Arkansas AFL-CIO recently endorsed Mark Swaney, for state representative in the 90th district. Swaney is the Green Party nominee. His only opponent in November is a Republican.
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On August 24, U.S. District Court Judge Graham C. Mullen, a Bush Sr. appointee, upheld North Carolina’s petition requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House. The law required a petition signed by 4% of the registered voters of the district. No independent candidate for U.S. House has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot in North Carolina, and such ballots have been in existence since 1901. The case is Greene v Bartlett, 5:08-cv-088. Here is the decision.
The judge noted that this year, the Service Employees International Union did succeed in qualifying an independent candidate for U.S. House in North Carolina. However, that candidate, Wendall Fant, will not appear on the ballot, even though enough valid signatures were obtained, because he didn’t want to be a candidate, and he withdrew.
The decision does say, “It is clear that North Carolina’s election laws place severe restrictions upon unaffiliated candidates. It is undisputed under the Storer test that unaffiliated candidates do not regularly qualify for the general election ballot in North Carolina.” But it says that because the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s 5% petition requirement in 1971 in Jenness v Fortson, and because the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to mention Jenness in some recent election law decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court must still believe in Jenness.
The plaintiff has not yet decided whether to appeal to the 4th circuit.
On August 24, a California Superior Court ruled that Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, and the California Independent Voters Network, and the campaign committee for “Yes on 14” , should all be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit that challenges two restrictive aspects of California’s “Top-two” system. The case is Field v Bowen, cgc10-502018, San Francisco. All three intervenors have the same set of attorneys.
In Court, the intervenors said that there is not necessarily a correspondence of viewpoints between the California Attorney General (who is charged with defending the challenged laws), and the viewpoints of the intervenors. However, they did not give any example of what those different viewpoints might be.
The hearing was a useful means for the attorneys from all sides to interact with the judge, and give the judge a sense of the case. The attorney for the plaintiffs, Gautam Dutta, made a brief argument on the merits of the case, which challenges the provision saying write-ins can’t be counted, and the provision that lets some, but not all, candidates put their party membership on the ballot. This was in the context that both of the challenged provisions limit voters’ rights, and therefore it is not rational for the intervenors to assert that they represent the interests of the voters. The other side, however, did not engage this argument.
On August 23, Taylor Haynes submitted a petition to appear on the Wyoming ballot as an independent candidate for Governor. If he has enough valid signatures, he will be the first independent gubernatorial candidate on the Wyoming ballot since 1958. See this story.
If Haynes appears on the ballot, the race will have four candidates. The Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate, not mentioned in the article, is Mike Wheeler.
On Monday, August 23, a rally was held in the rotunda of Pennsylvania’s state capitol in favor of the ballot access reform bill, SB 252. The bill was introduced by Senator Mike Folmer in 2009 and could conceivably pass into law this year. Pennsylvania legislative sessions are two years.
The rally has already been broadcast on Pennsylvania Cable Network TV, and it will be rebroadcast on August 24 at 1:20 p.m. eastern time. Thanks to Ross Levin for this news. Most Pennsylvania cable TV systems automatically include that channel.