Last week, the Federal Election Commission determined that Jill Stein has qualified for primary season matching funds. However, for various administrative reasons, it says it can’t send the payment to her campaign until August.
44
Wisconsin does not let independent presidential petitions start to circulate until July 1 of election years. See 8.20(8)(a). The law requires 2,000 signatures, due in early August. Therefore, various presidential campaigns are poised to start tomorrow.
The qualified parties, obviously, do not need to petition for president. They are the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties.
O June 5, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an order in Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089. This is the case over the 2019 Texas law that candidates who seek to be nominated at a convention must have paid the filing fee before they can be considered. In Texas, small ballot-qualified parties nominate by convention, not primary.
Judge Pitman denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, and scheduled a trial for September 8, 2025 (not 2024). He wrote, “It is a reasonable possibility that this filing fee structure does little to advance Texas’s interest in preventing ballot overcrowding or ensuring public support.”
The Texas laws says that filing fees paid by convention candidates are kept by the government. But filing fees paid by candidates running in a primary are given to those political parties. The ruling says it is plausible that the Texas scheme violates freedom of association for convention parties, and also violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Federalist has this article setting forth the rules for Democratic Party presidential selection.
The article is somewhat flawed because it mentions that Ohio formerly had a deadline for parties to certify their national tickets in advance of the Democratic 2024 national convention, and it does not say that on June 2, Ohio relaxed its law. However, that’s because the article was published on May 29, before Ohio changed its deadline.
On June 27, the Utah Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Phillips v Henderson, 2023-1098. This is the case over a proposed initiative to make it illegal for congressional candidates to run for election or re-election if they will attain age 81 during the new term in office. The Court said the proponents can’t even begin to qualify the initiative, because even if it got on the ballot and passed, it would violate the U.S. Supreme Court opinion U.S. Term Limits v Thornton (2005).
The decision does say the initiative proponents have standing. They will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Thus, eventually, there may be two cases asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the term limits case. The first would be from North Dakota, where the voters passed an initiative earlier this month setting similar age limits for congress. So far, no one has sued to overturn the North Dakota initiative.