John Rust, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Indiana this year, but who was kept off the primary ballot, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal. Rust v Morales, 23-1369. Here is his cert petition.
He was kept off the primary ballot because of a new law that said no one could be on a primary ballot who had not voted in that same party’s primary in previous years. He had won in the state trial court, but then the Indiana Supreme Court had reversed.
See this story about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s idea for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Last week, the Federal Election Commission determined that Jill Stein has qualified for primary season matching funds. However, for various administrative reasons, it says it can’t send the payment to her campaign until August.
Wisconsin does not let independent presidential petitions start to circulate until July 1 of election years. See 8.20(8)(a). The law requires 2,000 signatures, due in early August. Therefore, various presidential campaigns are poised to start tomorrow.
The qualified parties, obviously, do not need to petition for president. They are the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties.
O June 5, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an order in Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089. This is the case over the 2019 Texas law that candidates who seek to be nominated at a convention must have paid the filing fee before they can be considered. In Texas, small ballot-qualified parties nominate by convention, not primary.
Judge Pitman denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, and scheduled a trial for September 8, 2025 (not 2024). He wrote, “It is a reasonable possibility that this filing fee structure does little to advance Texas’s interest in preventing ballot overcrowding or ensuring public support.”
The Texas laws says that filing fees paid by convention candidates are kept by the government. But filing fees paid by candidates running in a primary are given to those political parties. The ruling says it is plausible that the Texas scheme violates freedom of association for convention parties, and also violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
