On February 2, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Keyes v Bowen, 188724, the case that argued the Secretary of State must investigate whether a presidential candidate meets the qualifications to be president, before listing him or her on the ballot. The case had been brought by Alan Keyes in 2008. UPDATE: Keyes plans to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review of this case.

The California Court of Appeals decision in this case will now stand. On October 25, 2010, the Court of Appeals had ruled that if a qualified party certifies a presidential nominee, the Secretary of State must list him or her on the November ballot. The decision says, “Section 6041 gives the Secretary of State some discretion in determining whether to place a name on the primary ballot, but she has no such discretion for the general election ballot…with respect to general elections, section 6901 directs that the Secretary of State must place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates.” The word “must” is in italics.

The Court of Appeals decision acknowledges that in 1968, California Secretary of State Frank Jordan refused to list the Peace & Freedom Party’s presidential nominee on the November ballot. That candidate was Eldridge Cleaver, and he was only 33 years old at the time. The decision, in effect, says the Secretary of State in 1968 should have listed Cleaver.

Scotusblog is a very prestigious blog that is recognized as the leading source of news about the U.S. Supreme Court. The editors choose particularly interesting and relevant cert petitions, and describe them, and provide links to the documents in that case. The case featured on February 3 is Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. See here. Thanks to both Thomas Jones and Rick Hasen for the link.

The case concerns Connecticut’s discriminatory law on how candidates for state office get public funding. All candidates must collect a large number of $5 contributions from voters, in order to qualify. But an independent candidate, or the candidate of a new party, must also submit a petition of 20% of the voters, in order to qualify for full public funding, whereas nominees of parties that polled 20% for Governor at the last election need no signatures at all.

The U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t accepted a case for review, if the cert petition was filed by a minor party or an independent candidate, since 1996, when it accepted Chandler v Miller, 520 U.S. 305, a Georgia case in which the Libertarian Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor successfully overturned a state law requiring candidates for state office to be tested for illegal drugs.

On January 11, the Michigan Attorney General filed a 30-page brief in the Michigan Supreme Court, arguing that the Supreme Court should not hear the Socialist Party’s ballot access case.

The Socialist Party’s strongest legal point is that the state requires substantially more signatures to get a new (or previously unqualified) party on the ballot, than it requires votes for an already-established party to remain on the ballot. In 2010, the Socialist Party needed 38,024 signatures to get on the ballot, but a party that was already on the ballot in 2010 only needed 16,083 votes for any statewide race to remain on the ballot. In Williams v Rhodes, the U.S. Supreme Court had said one reason the old Ohio ballot access laws for new parties were unconstitutional is that a new party needed petition signatures of 15% of the last gubernatorial vote to get on, but an old party needed a 10% vote (a lesser percentage) for Governor to remain on. The Michigan Attorney General’s brief does not mention Williams v Rhodes.

The Attorney General’s brief says, “A petition signature requirement is arguably more predictable and reliable, and thus, less burdensome, than a voting requirement.”