Former President Bill Clinton has signed a fund-raising letter for Kendrick Meek, one of the two candidates for the U.S. Senate nomination in the Florida Democratic primary of August 24. Clinton’s letter says, “I know a little something about three-candidate races…I believe that Kendrick Meek is the best candidate, and that he’s got a real shot at winning, but only if he gets our help now.” See this article. The article also gives a rundown of all the recent polls in that race.
Two Democratic state legislators in Maine have endorsed an independent gubernatorial candidate, according to this story in the Portland Press Herald. The independent gubernatorial candidate who received the endorsement is Eliot Cutler. The two state legislators are Senator Dennis Damon and Representative Leila Percy.
In many states, if a state legislator endorsed an independent candidate for an office as important as Governor, that legislator would be expelled as a member of that party’s legislative caucus. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
June 28 was the deadline for objections to be filed against Illinois petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, and for independent candidates. All of the statewide minor party and independent petitions have been challenged, including the statewide petitions of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.
The Green Party is not subject to worries about petition challenges, because it is a qualified party and already nominated its candidates in the February 2010 primary.
The challenger against the Libertarian and Constitution slates is Sharon Ann Meroni of Barrington Hills. She is also the only person who objected to the independent gubernatorial petition of Scott Lee Cohen. To the extent that Meroni is associated with the Republican Party (which she is), it is puzzling that she also challenged Cohen’s petition, because Cohen is an independent Democrat. UPDATE: Meroni explains the basis for her challenges at her web page here. She is challenging on the basis that they didn’t prove they meet the constitutional qualifications to hold the offices they are running for. If this is the only challenge to these petitions, the petitions are virtually certain to be upheld. Thanks to Jeff Trigg for the link.
Just because a challenge is filed does not mean that the challenged petitions are now invalid. The State Board of Elections must now hold quasi-judicial hearings on the validity of each signature on the various challenged petitions. The amount of work for the State Board of Elections, handling challenges, may possibly result in a demand that the Illinois ballot access system be reformed.
On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed the 3-judge U.S. District Court decision in Republican National Committee v Federal Election Commission, 09-1287. This case challenged part of the McCain-Feingold law that regulates contributions to political parties and spending by political parties. The Republican Party in this case was not trying to get the limits on political party contributions and expenditures entirely struck down; instead the party was trying to carve out certain kinds of contributions and spending from under the thumb of the law.
Professor Rick Hasen has these thoughts as the top item in Election Law blog. He says that perhaps the reason Justices Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts voted not to hear the case is that the case is not a straightforward attack on the constitutionality of the limits on political party campaign finance. Three justices, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy, did vote to hear the case, but the Court won’t take a case without four votes to hear it.
On June 28, the Texas Supreme Court asked the Texas Democratic Party to respond by Wednesday, June 30, 3 p.m., to the Green Party’s appeal brief. See this story.
