Steven Greenhut, a regular columnist for the Orange County Register, has this commentary today on the California measure that will appear on the ballot in June 2010 as the “top-two open primary”.
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On December 11, the Connecticut Green Party filed this brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit. The case is Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, 09-3941. The hearing is January 13, 2010. The case concerns the state’s system of public funding for candidates for state office, which are highly discriminatory in favor of Democrats and Republicans.
The Green Party’s brief is 118 pages. Highlights include footnote 34, which says, “Defendants’ own witness, State Senator Peter Mills of Maine, confirmed that third party candidacies on the state legislative level have never posed a threat to the public fisc under Maine’s public financing system.” Maine’s public funding program does not discriminate for or against any candidate on the basis of that candidate’s partisan membership or independent status.
Also worth reading is footnote 22, which explains that if Connecticut’s existing system had been in place in 1990, Lowell Weicker could never have succeeded in winning the governorship as the nominee of a new political party. Weicker has been a witness for the Green Party in this lawsuit.
On December 14, Missouri State Senator Joan Bray introduced a bill to improve the ballot access procedures for newly-qualifying parties. It is SB 679.
There is a flaw in the existing Missouri petition procedure for new and previously unqualified parties. That procedure is a party petition, a petition that asks potential signers if they support placing that party on the ballot. Such petitions normally don’t include the names of any candidates. Thirty-nine states have such procedures, including Missouri. After the petition has been circulated and found to have enough valid signatures, the group becomes a qualified party. It then chooses its nominees.
The problem with the Missouri procedure is that, because of a drafting flaw in 1993, if the group wants to nominate someone for president, the petition must carry the name of the presidential candidate and the group’s nominees for presidential elector. This peculiar provision for president contradicts the entire purpose of having a party-petition procedure, which is to let a group get on the ballot before it has chosen its nominees. SB 679 would correct the error. Thanks to Ken Bush for finding a sponsor for this bill and for the news.
The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson’s newspaper, carried this article in its December 14 edition. The theme of the story is that the state’s 11-year-old public funding law for state office is losing support among both Democratic and Republican state legislators. One charge against the law (which requires participating candidates to collect a large number of $5 donations) is that lobbyists sometimes help candidates raise those small donations.
North Carolina’s Constitution says that citizens are not eligible for elected public office if they “deny the being of Almighty God.” Six other states have similar provisions in their Constitutions: Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
Recently, Asheville, North Carolina, elected Cecil Bothwell to the city council. He considers himself an atheist. Local activist H. K. Edgerton is threatening to sue the city for violating the State Constitution. See this story.
The U.S. Constitution says that no religious test may ever be imposed as a condition for holding public office. Edgerton quite properly says that if the North Carolina Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution, then the North Carolina Constitution should be changed, but in the meantime, he wants the state Constitution enforced.