Carl Paladino, gubernatorial candidate of the Taxpayer Party of New York, filed 30,000 signatures on August 10, the first day on which petitions for the general election may be submitted.  15,000 are required.  Paladino is permitted to supplement that filing in the following week, and he expects to do so.  He is also running in the Republican gubernatorial primary in September.

The New York petition deadline is August 17.  Paladino insists that he will also win the Republican primary.  He has been ambivalent about whether he will withdraw as the Taxpayer Party candidate if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination.

Most observers predict that West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin will be elected to the U.S. Senate on November 2, 2010.  West Virginia elects its Governors in presidential election years, so assuming Manchin is elected to the Senate, he will then resign from being Governor halfway through his gubernatorial term.

This article explains why no one seems to know if West Virginia will then hold a special election for Governor.  The problem is the West Virginia Constitution, which is laughably unclear about that.

On August 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, invalidated National Park Service regulations that require a permit before any leaflets may be distributed within any part of a national park, or before any assembly or meeting may be held anywhere within a national park.  The United States has 391 national parks.  Some are urban but most are not.  The Court left plenty of room for the government to draft new regulations that are more subtle.

The Court was most concerned about small groups, or individuals, who may want to engage in First Amendment activity in parks and not be forced to apply for a permit and wait for perhaps 10 days for the permit to be issued.  The decision does not mention petitioning but the decision’s principles obviously relate to petitioning.  Here is the 29-page decision, Boardley v U.S. Department of the Interior.  It is written by Janice Rogers Brown, a Bush, Jr. appointee, and co-signed by David Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, and Brett Kavanaugh, another Bush, Jr. appointee.  Thanks to Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law blog for the link.