On May 31, the Nevada Supreme Court asked for supplemental briefing on whether the special U.S. House election set for September 2011 ought to be delayed. The Court must decide whether the lower state court was correct, when it interpreted the election law in special congressional elections to mean that parties have nominees. The Supreme Court of Nevada seems to feel this is too complicated to be decided quickly. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On June 1, the North Carolina House Elections Committee will hear HB 32, at 2:10 p.m. This is the bill that lowers the number of signatures for minor and new parties, and independent candidates. Thanks to Brian Irving for this news.
On May 24, Todd Grayson, communications director for the Ohio Libertarian Party, was appointed to the city council of Perrysburg, Ohio. Perrysburg is a city of 21,000 in northwest Ohio. It has nonpartisan city elections. See this story, which does not mention his affiliation. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for this news.
On May 30, the plaintiffs in Chamness v Bowen filed this rebuttal brief. Chamness v Bowen is the federal lawsuit that challenges two particular details of California’s top-two primary election system: (1) although California prints write-in space on November ballots for Congress and state office, those write-ins can never be counted, even if a write-in candidate receives the most votes; (2) California lets some party members list their party on the ballot but won’t let others do so.
All briefs are now in, and the hearing will be on June 13 in Los Angeles.
Jim Mason’s book “No Holding Back: the 1980 John B. Anderson Presidential Campaign” is about to be published, and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. This book is considerably longer than an earlier history about that campaign, “Diary of a Dark Horse.”
Anderson made history by being the first independent presidential candidate (as opposed to a minor party presidential candidate) to get on the ballot of all states. In order to do that, he had to win all of his 10 ballot access lawsuits, which he did. The most significant of his victories was the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze, which struck down early petition deadlines for independent and minor party presidential candidates.
Anderson pioneered the technique of using a stand-in vice-presidential candidate on his petitions, and then asking states to let him substitute his actual nominee, Patrick Lucey, a former Democratic Governor of Wisconsin. Anderson didn’t choose Lucey until August 27, 1980, too late for Lucey’s name to be included on petitions in virtually all states. Anderson sued the handful of states that didn’t let him substitute, and won all those cases. Unfortunately he didn’t have the resources to sue South Dakota, the one state that wouldn’t print Lucey’s name on the ballot. Thanks to Darcy Richardson for the news about the book’s release.
