On November 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, ruled in favor of the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Republican Party, and against a dissident member of the county party committee who had sued the party committee. The plaintiff, Millie Max, in a Republican primary in 2007, had campaigned door-to-door against Republicans who had been endorsed by the party committee, and in favor of other Republicans who did not have the party’s endorsement.

The chair of the party committee had asked Max if she knew who was doing such campaigning, and said he would trace the suspect’s identity by tracing the suspect’s license plate number. At that point Max “confessed” that she was the individual doing such door-to-door campaigning against the party’s endorsed candidates. The chair of the party committee then threatened to call a special meeting of the committee, at which he would denounce her and call on her to resign. However, the committee could not have forced her to resign, because she had been elected at a Republican primary to the party position for a fixed term.

The Court ruled that the party chair’s behavior is not state action, and quoted the U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres (2008), which said, “A political party has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes, and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform.” Here is the recent Pennsylvania decision.

The November 15 Washington Post has this interesting, lengthy article on how one dedicated activist built up the county unit of one political party in St. Joseph County, Indiana. The article happens to be about the Republican Party, but it applies equally to all political parties, large and small. Thanks to Henry Hirose for the link.

On November 13, a lower state court in Howard County, Maryland, heard oral arguments in Norman v Howard County, 13C-09-76855. Here is a newspaper story about that hearing. The issue is whether petition signatures must match exactly the name of the voter in voter registration records. The judge said it might take a while for him to issue an opinion, which implies that he takes it very seriously and that the outcome isn’t easy to predict. Last year the highest state court in Maryland had seemed to rule that signatures are invalid unless they match the record exactly, as to middle initials, middle names, and abbreviations.