This week, two California initiatives entered circulation that would potentially affect how elections and legislative government would work in California’s future. One provides that the voters themselves, by initiative petition, could call a state Constitutional Convention. The other provides for a part-time legislature. Each needs 694,354 valid signatures, since they each are themselves proposed constitutional amendments.
On October 29, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter dismissed Barnett v Obama, the case that had been filed on January 20, 2009, alleging that President Barack Obama does not meet the constitutional qualifications to be President. The decision is 30 pages and can be seen here.
Judge Carter ruled that the non-candidate plaintiffs, which included various military personnel and a few state legislators, do not have standing. He was hesitant to rule that Alan Keyes lacks standing, because Keyes did run against Obama in the presidential election of November 2008. On the other hand, the judge emphasized that Keyes’ showing was so weak, that he could not possibly have been elected; he was only on the ballot in three states. The decision says, “It does seem highly unlikely that the replacement of President Obama with another Democratic nominee such as Hillary Clinton would have resulted in a victory for Plaintiffs Keyes, Drake of the American Independent Party.” But, the decision says, “The Court is troubled by the idea that a third party candidate would not have standing to challenge a major party candidate’s qualifications.”
The decision then decides not to decide the question of whether Keyes had standing, and instead rules that even if Keyes does have standing, his suit must fail because it was not filed until after Obama was sworn into office (the judge notes that the case was filed at 3:26 pm Pacific time, January 20, 2009). The decision then says that the power to remove a sitting president from office resides with Congress, not the Judicial Branch. The decision says, “There may very well be a legitimate role for the judiciary to interpret whether the natural born citizen requirement has been satisfied in the case of a presidential candidate who has not already won the election and taken office. However, on the day that President Obama took the presidential oath and was sworn in, he became President of the United States.”
A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released October 29 for the U.S. House race in New York’s 23rd district shows these results: Democrat Bill Owens 33%, Conservative Doug Hoffman 32%, Republican Dede Scozzafava 21%, undecided 14%. See here for details.
On October 26, the city of Lake Park, Florida, settled a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that had been filed by the U.S. Justice Department, and agreed to elect its four city commissioners using Limited Voting. Although four commissioners will be elected at each future election, voters will be able to vote for only one candidate. Lake Park is 48% black, but since it was incorporated in 1923, no black candidate has ever won an election to the commission. In the 2000 census, 14% of Lake Park’s residents are of Haitian origin, and 6% are of Jamaican origin. Lake Park is in Palm Beach County. See the settlement details here. Thanks to Rob Richie for this news.
On October 22, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order, affirming the decision of the Commonwealth Court in Baylor v Cortes, 3 MAP 2009. One member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Justice J. Michael Eakin, wrote a four-page dissent, saying the Supreme Court should have heard the case.
The plaintiff was on the ballot in November 2008 as the nominee of the “No-Party Party” for State Senate in the 29th district. He got 2.2%, but he got enough votes in two of the counties in the district to meet Pennsylvania’s definition of ballot-qualified party within that district. Normally, a party that meets the vote test does not get automatic ballot status in the next election (unless 15% of the voters in the entire state are registered as members), but in special elections, all parties that meet the vote test are on the ballot automatically. Pennsylvania held a special election in that same State Senate district on March 3, 2009, but the State refused to put the “No Party-Party” on the ballot in that case. The creator of the party, Dennis J. Baylor, had then brought his lawsuit, but it was dismissed in the lower court because of a technicality involving court procedure.
Baylor had asked the State Supreme Court to hear the case, but that court has now refused, although Baylor has asked for reconsideration. His issues are (1) how the vote test applies when a party meets the vote test in some of the counties but not all of them; (2) alternatively, if his party should not have been on the ballot automatically, whether it was constitutional for him be required to re-petition in just three weeks in harsh winter weather; (3) whether the State Constitution really says that voters don’t need to be registered voters to sign ballot access petitions, just that they need to be eligible to register.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court also refused Carl Romanelli’s rehearing request on October 17, in the matter of the 2006 Green Party statewide petition. As noted previously in an earlier blog post, it also refused Ralph Nader’s request for rehearing from the 2004 election on October 23.
