All Statewide Illinois Petitions are Challenged

Posted on by June 29, 2010
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June 28 was the deadline for objections to be filed against Illinois petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties,  and for independent candidates.  All of the statewide minor party and independent petitions have been challenged, including the statewide petitions of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.

The Green Party is not subject to worries about petition challenges, because it is a qualified party and already nominated its candidates in the February 2010 primary.

The challenger against the Libertarian and Constitution slates is Sharon Ann Meroni of Barrington Hills.  She is also the only person who objected to the independent gubernatorial petition of Scott Lee Cohen.  To the extent that Meroni is associated with the Republican Party (which she is), it is puzzling that she also challenged Cohen’s petition, because Cohen is an independent Democrat.  UPDATE:  Meroni explains the basis for her challenges at her web page here.  She is challenging on the basis that they didn’t prove they meet the constitutional qualifications to hold the offices they are running for.  If this is the only challenge to these petitions, the petitions are virtually certain to be upheld.  Thanks to Jeff Trigg for the link.

Just because a challenge is filed does not mean that the challenged petitions are now invalid.  The State Board of Elections must now hold quasi-judicial hearings on the validity of each signature on the various challenged petitions.  The amount of work for the State Board of Elections, handling challenges, may possibly result in a demand that the Illinois ballot access system be reformed.

U.S. Supreme Court Summarily Affirms Republican National Committee v Federal Election Commission

Posted on by June 29, 2010
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On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed the 3-judge U.S. District Court decision in Republican National Committee v Federal Election Commission, 09-1287.  This case challenged part of the McCain-Feingold law that regulates contributions to political parties and spending by political parties.  The Republican Party in this case was not trying to get the limits on political party contributions and expenditures entirely struck down; instead the party was trying to carve out certain kinds of contributions and spending from under the thumb of the law.

Professor Rick Hasen has these thoughts as the top item in Election Law blog.  He says that perhaps the reason Justices Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts voted not to hear the case is that the case is not a straightforward attack on the constitutionality of the limits on political party campaign finance.  Three justices, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy, did vote to hear the case, but the Court won’t take a case without four votes to hear it.

Atascadero News Compares Special California State Senate Election with Likely Elections Under Prop. 14

Posted on by June 28, 2010
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Since the California primary election on June 8, this blog has generally avoided posting links to commentary about California’s Proposition 14,  because so much of that recent commentary just rehashes what has already been said in the last few months.  However, this Atascadero News editorial about Proposition 14 makes a somewhat new point.

New York State Board of Elections Agrees to Print “Rent is 2 Damn High” Party on Ballot, if it Gets Enough Signatures

Posted on by June 28, 2010
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On June 25, a pending lawsuit in U.S. District Court, concerning permissible party names, was settled out-of court.  Jimmy McMillan had sued to force the state to agree to print “Rent is Too Damn High Party” on the November 2010 ballot, if it gets the needed 15,000 signatures.  The state had said that label is too long.  McMillan had filed the lawsuit, alleging the real motivation behind the state’s denial of his party label is moral disapproval of the word “Damn”.  The case was settled when the state and the potential candidate agreed that “Rent is 2 Damn High” will be the label.  See this 3-page settlement order.  The case was McMillan v New York State Board of Elections, eastern district, 10-cv-2502.  Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.