The ACLU, which is fighting Montana’s independent candidate deadline (for office other than President) of March, has filed this brief in the 9th circuit. The case is called Kelly v McCulloch.
The U.S. District Court had dismissed the case, claiming the plaintiffs don’t have standing. The new brief makes an overwhelmingly strong argument that the U.S. District Court judge was wrong.
Gail Collins, a regular columnist for the New York Times, has this June 12 column which talks about the recent South Carolina Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. She concludes by saying, “We’ve spent decades now working on the assumption that the problem with American politics is the strength of political parties. This week, California eliminated party primaries entirely in favor of a system where all the candidates run on one ballot and the top two finishers move on to the November election. We’ll see how that works…the alternative to parties is an every-voter-for-herself system that would inevitably leave people staring at endless choices among candidates they’ve never heard of. The polling places become casinos where you pull the lever and pray. Maybe the real answer is not to make the parties weaker but to make them better.”
She could have said, although she didn’t, that another answer is to make it possible for new parties to compete in a level playing system.
Minor parties or independent candidates have constitutional lawsuits pending in at least 21 states:
1. Arkansas, where the Green Party is challenging the state’s definition of “qualified party”.
2. California, where the Libertarian Party is challenging residency requirements for petition circulators.
3. Colorado, where two independent candidates are challenging the deadline for an independent to have left membership in a political party (the legislature fixed this problem this year but didn’t make it effective until after the 2010 election, so the case is not moot because the candidates want to run in 2010).
4. Connecticut, where the Green and Libertarian Parties are awaiting a decision of the 2nd circuit in the case against discriminatory public funding for candidates.
5. District of Columbia, where the Libertarian Party is waiting for a decision on whether the Board of Elections should count write-ins cast for Bob Barr in 2008.
6. Georgia, where an independent candidate, Faye Coffield, challenges the number of signatures for to run for U.S. House. Her rehearing request in the 11th circuit was filed April 9 and is still pending.
7. Hawaii, where Ralph Nader’s challenge to the number of signatures needed for an independent presidential candidate will be heard in the 9th circuit in Honolulu on June 17.
8. Kansas, where the Constitution Party is seeking to win the right to have voters register as members of the party, even though it is not ballot-qualified.
9. Massachusetts, where the Libertarian Party is in the 1st circuit over presidential stand-ins.
10. Montana, where an independent candidate for U.S. Senate is challenging the March petition deadline; the first brief in the 9th circuit was filed on June 11.
11. Nebraska, where an independent candidate and the Libertarian Party are both challenging the ban on out-of-state circulators.
12. New Hampshire, where the Libertarian Party is challenging the ban on presidential stand-ins, and the state’s refusal to allow unqualified parties control over which candidates can use the party’s label on the ballot.
13. New Jersey, where an independent candidate’s lawsuit over ballot format is dormant but still alive in state court.
14. New Mexico, where the Green Party is challenging the state’s definition of “political party”.
15. North Carolina, where the Green and Libertarian Parties are challenging many of the state’s ballot access laws in State Supreme Court, and where an independent candidate is challenging the number of signatures for an independent candidate for U.S. House.
16. Pennsylvania, where the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties are challenging the state’s refusal to tally write-ins; the refusal of some counties to count any write-ins; the state’s 15% voter registration membership test to be automatically on the ballot;and the state’s policy of charging candidates huge court costs if their petitions are invalidated after being challenged.
17. South Carolina, where the Green Party is challenging the state law that says if a party nominates someone, and that person later tries to get another party’s nomination and fails, then the first nomination is voided.
18. South Dakota, where the Constitution Party is challenging the number of signatures needed to get a candidate on the party’s own primary ballot.
19. Utah, where an independent candidate is challenging the state’s refusal to recognize electronic signatures on petitions.
20. Virginia, where the Libertarian Party is challenging the residency requirement for circulators.
21. Washington, where the Libertarian Party, along with the two major parties, is challenging the state’s top-two election system.
Also pending is the case against the Post Office regulation that bans petitioning on interior post office sidewalks. This case is by far the oldest case on this list; it was filed over ten years ago and is still in U.S. District Court. And, two cases filed by referendum proponents are pending in Maryland over an interpretation of state law that says signatures are invalid if they aren’t exact matches to the signer’s name on the voter registration form.
Thanks to Independent Political Report for this story. The Wall Street Journal says here that Sharron Angle, this year’s Republican Party nominee for U.S. Senate, was a member of the Independent American Party between 1992 and 1997. She was one of the party’s sponsors when it re-qualified for the ballot in 1992. The Independent American Party is the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party. The Wall Street Journal does not mention the Constitution Party, but the newspaper’s story would have been of better quality if it had done so.
Sharron Angle is also lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit, Angle v Miller, which challenges Nevada election laws that say that initiative petition circulators must certify that they know that each signer is a registered voter. The lawsuit makes the obvious point that a circulator can’t know that, unless conceivably a petitioner might possess a hand-held computer that links to the list of registered voters.
This June 12 story in Charleston, South Carolina’s daily newspaper is mostly about the Democratic Party election returns being certified, but the second half of the story covers Tom Clements, the only non-major party on the South Carolina ballot in November 2010 for U.S. Senate.
Most states in the United States in recent years have seen televised debates for Governor or U.S. Senator at which at least one minor party or independent candidate was included with both major party nominees. South Carolina, however, does not have that tradition, but perhaps Clements will break through. Thanks to Dave Gillespie for the link.
