National Public Radio of Oregon has this story about the Independent Party, which is holding an internet privately-financed primary this summer. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
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The Detroit Free Press published this story on July 15, about the petition to qualify the Tea Party for the Michigan ballot. Much of the story is not new. However, the story contains an allegation by a veteran petition manager that the drive to collect 38,024 valid signatures cost $120,000. The petition bears 59,000 signatures.
Also, the story contains an allegation that the group that handled the petition drive has ties to the United Auto Workers Union. As had been reported before, the people who organized the petition drive have generally hid their contact information, and refuse to talk to the press. As is true for all petitions to create new parties in Michigan, the petition does not contain the name of any candidates. August 3 is deadline for the party (and for any ballot-qualified Michigan minor party) to announce the names of its nominees.
On July 16, a U.S. District Court in Connecticut cleared the way for a Republican candidate for Governor to receive extra public funding for his campaign, even though the U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled the provision for extra public funding to be unconstitutional on July 13. See this story.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Fedele will now receive $312,500 in extra public funding. The “extra” public funding refers to the kind of public funding that publicly-funded candidates may receive when they have an opponent who is privately-funded and who is very well-funded. Fedele’s opponent in the Republican primary, Thomas C. Foley, the frontrunner, had sued to block Fedele from receiving the extra public funding.
Although this type of public funding had been held unconstitutional on July 13 by the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, the decision (like virtually all decisions of Circuit Courts) does not go into effect for three weeks after it was released. The three-week delay is to allow time for reconsideration requests. This is the technicality that allows the release of the money. The U.S. District Court had also held the extra public funding provision unconstitutional last year, but had stayed its own decision pending the decision of the 2nd circuit.
On July 16, the West Virginia Senate passed SB 2001, a bill to set forth procedures for special elections for U.S. Senate. The bill passed with only one dissenting vote.
The bill is deficient because it requires independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, to submit the same number of signatures, with the same deadline, as for a regular election. See the part of the bill on the last page, under 3-10-4a. Under that heading, see (c)(3), which says, “Groups of citizens having no party organization may nominate candidates in accordance with section 23, article five of this chapter.” 3-5-23 is the part of the current election code governing petitions to get on the November ballot. It says petitions are due on August 1 (and when August 1 is on a weekend, as it is this year, the petitions are due at the end of July). But if that deadline is retained in the final bill, and no adjustment is made for the fact that groups would only have had 10 days or so to get the needed 7,024 valid signatures, the procedure would be unconstitutional.
Courts in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, and Wyoming have ruled (or at least granted injunctive relief) that when the normal petitioning time is not available, the number of signatures must be reduced or the deadline must be extended. Also, there is a West Virginia precedent, Nader 2000 Primary Committee v Hechler, 112 F.Supp.2d 575, in which a U.S. District Court put Ralph Nader on the ballot partly because the legislature in 1999 had increased the number of signatures from 1% to 2% of the last vote cast. Nader argued successfully that if the legislature was going to double the number of signatures, it should have made the increase effective after 2000, because increasing the requirements in the middle of the two-year petitioning cycle violated due process. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news about the State Senate action.
In 2009, the Pennsylvania Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties filed a federal lawsuit against four aspects of Pennsylvania ballot access law: (1) some counties refuse to count any write-in votes; (2) the state arbitrarily refuses to tally the write-ins that are counted: (3) the state’s law that says only parties with registration of 15% or more of the state total are able to place nominees on the ballot with no petition; (4) the state’s challenge system, which makes anyone who files a statewide minor party petition liable for perhaps $100,000 in costs if the petition doesn’t have enough signatures.
On March 31, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel, on March 31, dismissed the lawsuit. He said point (4) had already been settled in state court. His decision ignored the other parts of the lawsuit. The parties then asked for a rehearing, on the grounds that his first decision had ignored most of the issues in the case.
On July 16, Judge Stengel denied the request for a rehearing. He said the parties either don’t have standing to raise the other issues, or that the case is not ripe. He cited no authority for his conclusions. His rejection of a rehearing is 8 pages. The parties will now appeal to the Third Circuit.