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.

On Sunday, May 29, the Texas legislature passed SB 100. It leaves the date of the primary in March, but moves the runoff primary from April to the fourth Tuesday in May. Because the current law says independent candidate petitions (for office other than President) are due 30 days after the runoff primary, this moves the independent candidate petition deadline from May to June. In 2012 the petition deadline will be June 24.

Oddly, though, the independent presidential petition deadline will be May 14, because the code section governing that deadline is in a separate place and it not tied to the date of any primary or runoff primary. Assuming the bill is signed into law, it will be very likely that an independent presidential candidate will win a lawsuit against the May 14 deadline. There is no state interest in requiring an independent presidential candidate to submit a petition forty days before the petition for other independent candidates. Even without this discriminatory aspect, the presidential deadline is so early that it appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze.

SB 100 also moves the deadline for non-presidential candidates to file a declaration of candidacy from early January of the election year, to the second Monday in December of the odd year before the election year. That deadline applies to independent candidates, minor party candidates, and major party candidates. No other state has anything remotely similar, as applied to independent candidates. The whole point of having procedures for independent candidates is to give voters an alternative if the primaries produce unsatisfactory nominees. But the filing requirement makes the emergence of a new candidate legally impossible.

On May 27, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed SB 189, which moves the primary from August to June. It also moves the qualifying deadline for an indepedendent presidential candidate, or the presidential nominee of an unqualified party, from late June to early June. And, it moves the petition deadline for a group to submit a petition to become a qualified party from March to January.

The petition deadline change for groups to become qualified parties is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that an unqualified party can still place nominees on the November ballot, with the party label, via candidate petitions that are due in June. However, the new earlier deadline for presidential independent candidates would likely be unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze. Lower courts have invalidated petition deadlines for presidential candidates, in June, in five states, and there are no decisions since Anderson v Celebrezze upholding an independent presidential deadline in June.

Ironically, the current Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, represented the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate, Walt Brown, in a 2004 lawsuit filed by Brown against the July 4 deadline, and he won that case on statutory grounds. Yet now that Gessler is Secretary of State, instead of an attorney in private practice, he supported moving the deadline to early June. Thanks to Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ for the news that the Governor signed the bill.