The hearing in U.S. District Court in the Arizona Green Party case took about 40 minutes. The state defended its law, barring out-of-state circulators from working on a petition to get a party on the ballot, by saying there is no enforcement mechanism to stop out-of-state circulators from working on such a petition. That is a rather half-hearted defense, especially because the petition form is a state form and it says that the circulator is an Arizona resident.

The state defended the February petition deadline by saying that the state doesn’t use random sampling to check petitions for new parties, so it needs extra time. Arizona does use a 5% random sampling procedure to check initiative petitions, and there seems no rational reason why Arizona can’t also use random sampling to review petitions for a new party. A decision is likely by the end of this week.

On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Palmer v Waxahachie Independent School District, no. 09-409. The issue was whether the Constitution protects the ability of a student at a public high school to wear a T-shirt to school that contains a campaign message. In this case, the student wanted to wear a T-shirt promoting John Edwards for president. The U.S. District Court and the 5th circuit had both ruled against the student, and the case is now over. See this story.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton will hold oral arguments on Monday, January 11, at 11:30 a.m., in Arizona Green Party v Bennett, 2:09-cv-2412-MHB. The Courthouse is at 401 W. Washington Street in downtown Phoenix, for anyone who may be near there and wishes to watch. The hearing is in room 502.

The issues are: (1) whether the Constitution protects the ability of out-of-state circulators to work on a petition to qualify a previously unqualified party; (2) whether due process demands that the new petition deadline to qualify a new party should not be in effect in 2010, because that change (from March 2010 to February 2010) was not in effect until October 2009, after the Green Party had already planned its timeline strategy for getting the 20,449 needed valid signatures.