On January 14, attorneys for groups that wish to circulate petitions on interior post office sidewalks filed this brief. The case is Initiative and Referendum Institute v United States Postal Service, 10-5337, in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. This case is more than ten years old. The brief is only 20 pages and contains a clear summary of what has happened so far. The purpose of this brief is to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals to allow full briefing and oral argument. This brief is a response to the post office’s earlier brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, which argues that the case should be summarily dismissed.

Attached to the brief are pages from the transcript in front of the U.S. District Court in 2006, in which the U.S. District Court asked both sides to help create a survey of postmasters, to determine if interior postal sidewalks are indeed commonly used for First Amendment activity. Both sides worked together to do this survey, and it showed that, yes, interior postal sidewalks are commonly used for First Amendment activity. The results of this survey ought to be helpful to the people who challenged the postal ban on petitioning, because they show that interior post office sidewalks are a traditional public forum. However, the U.S. District Court Judge, who had himself suggested the survey, then sat on the case for four years and finally ruled in favor of the post office, in a ruling that belittled the survey evidence.

On January 31, the West Virginia House Committee unanimously passed HB 2853, which sets up a primary for this year’s special gubernatorial election, and also sets rules for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. Policy committees in both houses have now passed bills to hold primaries. If no bill passes, the three qualified parties will nominate by convention. The Senate bill is SB 261. The two versions differ, and one of the differences is that the House bill requires a smaller number of signatures for minor party and independent candidates.

On January 28, the North Dakota Libertarian Party filed this Reply Brief in North Dakota Libertarian Party v Jaeger, in the 8th circuit. This is the case that challenges that state’s ballot access rules for minor party legislative candidates. The law requires the legislative candidates of all qualified parties to run in a party primary, and in that primary, they must poll a number of votes equal to between approximately 8% and 15% of the total number of people who cast a ballot in all party primaries put together.

Because very few voters ever choose a minor party primary ballot, the law effectively prevents minor parties from ever placing candidates for the legislature on the November ballot. No minor party legislative candidate has appeared in the November election in North Dakota since 1976.