On January 25, the Indiana Supreme Court said it will hear the state’s appeal in League of Women Voters v Rokita, the case over whether Indiana’s Constitution is violated by the state’s law, requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID in order to vote. The State Court of Appeals had invalidated the law on September 17, 2009, by a vote of 3-0. The State Court of Appeals decision is reported at 915 NE 2d 151. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
Both houses of Congress have bills to provide for public funding of candidates for Congress. They are S752 and HR 1826. The Senate bill has 5 co-sponsors and the House bill has 126 co-sponsors.
Many Democrats in Congress have expressed dismay at the U.S. Supreme Court’s campaign finance opinion, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, handed down January 21. That decision lets corporations and unions run their own advertising, either supporting or criticizing candidates for federal office. Much commentary has predicted that the ruling will cause renewed interest in public funding of campaigns. However, so far, no new co-sponsors have signed up to either of the public funding bills since the decision came down. It is possible that in the next few weeks and months, though, there will be new support for the bills.
California Assemblymember Manuel Perez, a Democrat who represents Imperial County and eastern Riverside County, says in this newspaper interview that he opposes the “top-two open primary” that will be on the June 2010 ballot. He mentioned the lack of voter choices in November, if the proposal passes.
The interview appears in The Desert Sun, a Palm Springs daily newspaper that has carried commentary in favor of “top-two”, but which has so far declined to print a letter to the editor from a resident of the Palm Springs area who sent such a letter.
California Assemblymember Manuel Perez, a Democrat who represents Imperial County and eastern Riverside County, says in this newspaper interview that he opposes the “top-two open primary” that will be on the June 2010 ballot. He mentioned the lack of voter choices in November, if the proposal passes.
The interview appears in The Desert Sun, a Palm Springs daily newspaper that has carried commentary in favor of “top-two”, but which has so far declined to print a letter to the editor from a resident of the Palm Springs area who sent such a letter.
The South Carolina Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on SB 590 on Tuesday, January 26, at 3 p.m, in room 105 of the Gressette Building. SB 590 says that independent candidate petitions may not be signed by people who voted in a primary. It also says that no one may vote if that person had not been registered to vote at least 30 days before the petition is submitted.
The bill had been introduced last year, but had not moved. An identical bill in the House, HB3746, had passed the House Judiciary Committee on April 22, 2009, but had not made further progress.
The bill would almost surely be held unconstitutional if it passed. South Carolina laws for independent candidates for district office are already so harsh, no independent candidate for U.S. House has ever qualified for a government-printed ballot in that state. The law requires 10,000 signatures for a U.S. House candidate. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Storer v Brown in 1974 that when a state combines a hefty petition requirement with a primary screenout, that the combination of the two means that courts should invalidate the law if the historical evidence shows that independent candidates rarely qualify.
South Carolina and North Carolina are the only two states in which no independent candidate for U.S. House has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot. The North Carolina independent petition procedure is under attack in federal court.
The part of SB 590 that says voters can’t sign unless they have been registered to vote for 30 days before the petition is clearly unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge U.S. District Court in 1970 from New York. One of the holdings in that 1970 decision, Socialist Workers Party v Rockefeller, was that it is unconstitutional to bar newly-registered voters from signing petitions. Thanks to Bryan Sells for the news about the South Carolina bill.
Anyone checking past South Carolina election returns for Congress should be aware that in South Carolina, independent candidates are called “By petition” candidates, on the ballot and in the official election returns. There was an Independent Party on the ballot in South Carolina in the 1970’s, which had candidates for U.S. House, but those candidates were not independent candidates.
