On March 22, the Nevada U.S. Senate candidate for the Independent American Party (affiliate of the Constitution Party) filed a lawsuit in state court, to keep Scott Ashjian off the November ballot. The lawsuit says that the law requires Ashjian to have been registered in the Tea Party no later than March 1, but that he didn’t fill out a new affidavit of registration until March 2. See this story. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news. The Independent American Party U.S. Senate candidate is Tim Fasano.

Back in 1994, a somewhat similar Nevada law was used by the Secretary of State to keep certain Independent American Party nominees off the general election ballot. Secretary of State Cheryl Lau disqualified seven IAP candidates, but the State Supreme Court put them back on the ballot, and ruled that Nevada had no law telling minor party nominees that they must have been registered into their party by any particular date. That case was Independent American Party v Lau, 880 P.2d 1391.

Even earlier, in 1975, the Independent American Party also won on this issue in the Nevada Supreme Court. That case was Long v Swackhamer, 538 P.2d 587. The Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to require a new party’s members to have been registered into the party at some point in the past. Also, in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court said in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that it would violate the First Amendment for any state to tell a party that it can’t nominate a non-member.

Carl P. Paladino is a New York Republican who has virtually announced that he is running for Governor this year. He seems to have little support at the Republican Party upcoming state endorsements convention, so he will need to collect 15,000 signatures of registered Republicans to get on the primary ballot. The other two prominent Republicans running for Governor, Rick Lazio and Steve Levy, do have substantial support at the state convention, so they may not need to circulate any primary petitions to be on the primary ballot.

Paladino also says that he will circulate general election petitions under the “Tea Party” label. See this article. The article does not make it clear if Paladino will create the Tea Party line even if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination.

On March 19, the U.S. Supreme Court asked Mississippi to file a response to the cert petition filed by Brian Moore, in the case over whether Mississippi should have put Moore on the ballot for President in 2008. The case is Moore v Hosemann, 09-982.

This is the second indicator that the Court may be interested in this case. The first indicator was when Scotusblog flagged this case as a cert petition of interest. Scotusblog is a well-regarded news service that covers developments in the U.S. Supreme Court more closely than any other news source.

If the Court does take the case, it will be the first time since 1991 that the Court has taken a ballot access case filed with that Court by a minor party or independent candidate.