On December 21, a U.S. District Court will hold a trial in Bernbeck v Gale, 4:10-cv-3001.  This is the case that challenges Nebraska’s ban on out-of-state petition circulators, and also challenges the state’s ban on paying circulators on a per-signature basis.  The trial is not expected to last beyond one day.  Most of the facts are not in dispute.  Plaintiffs have already submitted a great deal of evidence showing that these two restrictions substantially increase the cost of getting initiatives on the ballot.  This particular case concerns an initiative in one small city, Stanton.

A somewhat similar case is pending in Nebraska called Citizens in Charge v Gale, but it is not as far along in the process.  That case contains an issue that is not involved in the Bernbeck case.  The Citizens in Charge case challenges the ban on out-of-state circulators, but it also challenges a Nebraska law that sets up a county distribution requirement for statewide non-presidential independent candidates.  The U.S. Supreme Court back in 1969 ruled that statewide petitions cannot have county distribution requirements.  Nebraska already had one such county-distribution requirement declared unconstitutional in 1984.  But the 2007 session of the legislature didn’t seem to remember that, and passed another one.

Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, has “The Bipartisanship Racket” in the December 19 print edition.  He examines the “No Label” organization with a critical eye.  Thanks to Eric Reinhardt for the link.

As noted earlier, a lawsuit is pending in a lower state court in Iowa, over the problem that the State Constitution says judicial retention elections must be held on separate ballots than the ballot for other offices.  The state ignored this constitutional requirement in November 2010, and put the judicial retention question on the ballot used to elect people to federal office, state office, and county office.  At that election, the voters voted to remove three members of the State Supreme Court.  They faced political opposition because they had been part of the unanimous decision last year that said the Iowa Constitution requires the state to permit same-sex marriage.

The Des Moines Register has this interesting article about the dilemma the lower court judge faces.  If he upholds the challenge to the election, there is some likelihood that the voters will feel disenfranchised.  On the other hand, if he says the vote was valid even though it was not held in accordance with the State Constitution, he will seem to have validated the objections of many people who feel that judges are not really faithful to constitutions.