On September 18, Berlin, Germany, held state elections. See this story about the results. The Green Party boosted its share of the vote from 13% in the last state election, to 18%. As a result, the Green Party is expected to join the ruling state coalition.
The Pirate Party polled over 8% of the vote. The BBC describes it as “little-known”, and says its platform includes greater personal data protection and legalizing marijuana.
Last week, Denmark held national elections. R. Spencer Oliver, an American statesman living in Denmark, has this commentary on Denmark’s election system. Oliver feels Denmark’s election system is better than the system used in the United States. He notes voter turnout in Denmark’s recent election was 87.7%, and he also notes that Denmark, because of proportional representation, has eight parties in its Parliament.
Oliver was chief counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs between 1985 and 1993. Since 1993 he has been Secretary General of the International Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, more commonly known as the Helsinki Accords organization. In the Watergate scandal of 1972, he was one of the persons whose phone was tapped by Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. At the time, Oliver was a Democratic Party official. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On September 16, the Ninth Circuit ruled 9-2 that cities may not criminalize the act of standing on a public sidewalk to solicit “employment, business, or contributions from an occupant of any motor vehicle.” The case is Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach v City of Redondo Beach, 06-55750. Although this is not directly related to petitioning (because petitioners never expect anyone driving a car to pull over to the curb, get out of the car, and sign a petition), the decision illustrates the protection that the First Amendment gives to anyone who uses a public sidewalk for First Amendment activity. Here is the decision. The majority opinion is 23 pages; there is a concurrence and a lengthy dissent.
The decision struck down a city ordinance that had been enacted to stop day laborers from standing on certain busy streets and holding up signs, or otherwise indicating, that they were seeking employment. Thanks to How Appealing for this news.
According to this story, former Florida State Senator Nancy Argenziano will run for Congress in 2012 as the nominee of the Independent Party. Earlier, Argenziano had expressed a desire to be a Democratic Party nominee in 2012, but the new election law passed this year forbids anyone from running in a party primary if that person had been a member of another qualified party during the preceding year. Argenziano left the Republican Party some time ago and registered as a member of the Independent Party, which is ballot-qualified. It appears her intent was to become an independent candidate. But, she is making the best of the situation, and will stick with the Independent Party.
Another part of the article refers to new requirements on small qualified parties, that they organize themselves with a structure similar to the Democratic and Republican Parties. That is also part of the election law passed in 2011. However, the new law does not unambiguously say what the article says it does. And even if the new law is interpreted strictly, it would then be unconstitutional under a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion that says states cannot tell parties how to be organized. That decision, released in 1989, is called San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee v Eu, 489 U.S. 214. Also, in Jenness v Fortson, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it would be unconstitutional for states to treat small parties as though they were the same as the two major parties.
On September 16, attorneys for Carl Lewis filed a four-page brief in the 3rd circuit, arguing that the full panel should not stay the decision earlier this week that put him on the ballot. The brief says, apart from the merits of the case, “no irreparable injury would be suffered by Intervenors (who represent the Republican Party) in the absence of a stay. There has been no showing whatsoever as to how the inclusion of Appellant’s name on the ballots at issue would harm intervenors. Indeed, the only possible outcome is that the eleciton will go forward with two candidates (one representing each major party) between whom the voters would have an opportunity to choose. In a democracy this cannot possibly be said to present irreparable harm.”
