The three candidates on the ballot in Utah’s U.S. Senate election debated each other on September 17. See this story. They are Republican Mike Lee, Democrat Sam Granato, and Constitution Party nominee Scott Bradley. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for the link.
On September 24, the 7th circuit upheld the order of a U.S. District Court, limiting the names of candidates in the special U.S. Senate election in Illinois to the same candidates who had qualified for the regular 6-year U.S. Senate election. The 16-page decision is Judge v Quinn, 10-2836.
The 7th circuit opinion says, “Nothing in the permanent injunction excludes a particular class or group of candidates in a manner that suggests that an identifiable group of voters will be left out of the special election…The District Court’s remedy, which relies on candidates selected pursuant to the Illinois Election Code, was designed to be, and probably is, the most democratic and constitutionally sound approach the district court could have devised.”
As to the argument that Article One of the U.S. Constitution requires state legislatures to pass laws governing congressional elections (except when Congress supercedes them), the 7th circuit decision says that U.S. Senator Roland Burris didn’t make that argument in the U.S. District Court, so it is too late for him to raise that argument in the 7th circuit. The decision is signed by the same three judges who had this same case earlier.
On September 28, U.S. District Court Judge James Gardner, a Bush Jr. appointee, upheld a Philadelphia ordinance banning temporary signs on utility poles, streetlights, and traffic and parking signs. The plaintiffs were candidates for public office who wanted to post temporary campaign signs. The case is Johnson v City and County of Philadelphia, 08-cv-1748.
On September 28, the West Virginia Republican Party said it won’t appeal its loss in lower state court, in the case over whether the special election for U.S. Senate should be on the same ballot as the other offices. See this story.
States in which lawsuits are still undecided, and which must be decided before ballots can be printed, are Florida, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia. See this story about an unresolved Florida lawsuit.
On the evening of September 27, the Virginia State Board of Elections filed a response with the U.S. Supreme Court in Lux v Rodrigues, 10A-298. This is the case that challenges a law that no one may circulate a petition for a candidate for U.S. House, if the circulator doesn’t live in that district. UPDATE: on the afternoon of September 28, Lux filed his 10-page response.
The state’s response says that the two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have struck down restrictions on who can circulate a petition do not apply in this case, because both those two decisions involved initiatives, not candidates. Also the state says that even if the U.S. Supreme Court tells the state to check the Lux petition, he probably wouldn’t have enough valid signatures anyway. The state bases this idea on the fact that elections officials did check the petition validity of the Lux petitions that were circulated by residents, and if one extrapolates, Lux doesn’t have enough valid signatures. However, only 161 of the Lux signatures were circulated to residents of the district, whereas 1,062 of the Lux signatures were gathered by the candidate himself. It is quite possible that the candidate himself, Herb Lux, did a better job of petitioning than other people who circulated his petition. The state has never checked the validity of the signatures gathered by the candidate himself.
