According to this news story, no Texas Democrat filed by the January 4 deadline to run for Comptroller, a partisan elected statewide office in Texas. Therefore, it is certain that the Libertarian Party nominee for that office will poll more than 5% of the vote cast for that office, and the party’s ballot status will carry through into 2012. The Libertarian Party is the only ballot-qualified party in Texas now, other than the Democrats and Republicans. But it must poll 5% for any statewide partisan race in 2010, or else 2% for Governor in 2010, to keep that status.

It is conceivable that either or both the Green Party and the Constitution Party will be on the Texas ballot in 2010. Someone filed for Comptroller for each of those parties. However, the Constitution Party and the Green Party won’t be on the ballot unless they can obtain 43,991 valid signatures between March and May, 2010, from the ranks of registered voters who didn’t vote in a major party primary in March 2010. The person who filed for Comptroller for the Libertarians is Mary Ruwart; for the Greens, Ed Lindsay; for the Constitution Party, Alan Marsh. The conventions of these parties are free to choose anyone to run for Comptroller, not necessarily the person who filed the declaration of intent. But if no one from those parties had filed a declaration of intent, those parties could not run anyone for that office.

No one filed with either the Reform Party or the Socialist Party for Comptroller, so even if those parties were able to petition in 2010, they couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to poll a big vote for that office.

In Texas, and in most states, when only one major party runs for a statewide office, any minor party candidate in that race polls a big vote. For example, in 2008, a Libertarian running for a statewide partisan judicial race in which there was no Democrat polled 1,043,642 votes, or 18.10% of the total.

On January 6, at 9 a.m., the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Society for Krishna Consciousness v City of Los Angeles, S164272. The issue is whether airports should be open to expressive activity under the state Constitution. The case was filed by the Hare Krishna organization, which wants to be able to approach people outside of airport terminals. The case will also have implications for other publicly-owned areas in which large numbers of people gather, such as sports complexes. See this story.

The case is already in the federal court system. The 9th circuit asked the California Supreme Court to give it assistance, by telling the 9th circuit what the California Constitution means in cases involving public fora. In the 9th circuit the case is 01-56579.

On January 5, a second lawsuit was filed in federal court against some Nebraska laws that restrict who can circulate petitions. The new case, Bernbeck v Gale, 4:10-cv-3001, challenges the law barring out-of-state residents from circulating petitions. A case filed last month, Citizens in Charge v Gale, also challenges that law, which was passed in 2008.

However, the new case attacks other restrictions not attacked in the earlier lawsuit. The new case challenges the law that makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis, and also attacks an age limit on circulators. The new case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon, a Clinton appointee. The case arose when a local initiative in the city of Stanton, Nebraska, was rejected, even though it had enough valid signatures. The initiative was rejected solely because of the identity of the circulators.