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.

U.S. District Court Judge Graham C. Mullen will hear oral arguments in Greene v Bartlett on July 28, 2010, at 10:30 a.m. in the federal courthouse in Charlotte, courtroom #3.  The address is 401 W. Trade Street.  This is the lawsuit, filed in 2008, that challenges the number of signatures needed for a U.S. House independent candidate in North Carolina.  The law requires 4% of the number of registered voters.

North Carolina has had government-printed ballots ever since 1901, but no independent candidate for U.S. House has ever appeared on a North Carolina government-printed ballot.  This year, the Service Employees International Union backed a petition to place an independent candidate, Wendell Fant, on the ballot for U.S. House in one district, and did succeed in getting enough valid signatures.  However, the candidate listed on the petition then said he did not want to run.

Anyone who lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, should consider attending this hearing if possible.

On July 16, the 11th circuit set an expedited briefing schedule in Scott v Roberts, the case over the constitutionality of Florida’s extra public funding for gubernatorial candidates who have a privately-funded opponent with a very large warchest.  All three briefs will have been filed by July 27.  The case number is 10-13211-H.

The U.S. District Court, on July 14, had refused to enjoin the extra public funding.  The case had been filed by a wealthy candidate, running for Governor in the August Republican primary, to block his opponent from receiving extra public funding.  Here is the 4-page order of the U.S. District Court, which expresses the opinion that the case is a close one.  Thanks to Rick Hasen for that document.