On September 3, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle heard oral arguments in Protect Marriage.com v Reed, the case over whether the U.S. Constitution demands that signatures on referendum petitions should be kept secret, if the referendum concerns a contentious issue. See this story. Judge Settle said he will decide the case by September 10.
According to this story, a Pike County, Pennsylvania, Court of Common Pleas will itself recount the write-in votes in this year’s primary for local office, in a few precincts. The recount will be conducted in open court on September 9. The county elections office expected to conduct the write-in itself, but the judge pointed to a statute that a court should do this work. Pennsylvania, more than any other state, provides that courts should do the kind of work that election administrators in other states usually perform, such as checking petition signatures.
Bill Moyers Journal, a weekly interview show on Public TV, hosts two attorneys on the September 4, Friday evening broadcast. They are Trevor Potter and Floyd Abrams. Potter is a former FEC Commissioner who has been active in support of the McCain-Feingold law and other restrictions on campaign spending. Abrams is with the ACLU and has been an active opponent of such restrictions. They will discuss the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court hearing in Citizens United v FEC, set for September 9, involving the film, “Hillary: the Movie.” Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
On August 28, the West Virginia Independent Commission on Judicial Reform held a conference on possibly recommending public funding for judicial candidates in West Virginia. See this story in the September 2 Record, a legal newspaper in West Virginia. The Commission heard from North Carolina public officials. North Carolina elects its judges on a non-partisan basis and has a method for judicial candidates to file for public funding.
Briefs are due on September 8 in Daien v Ysursa, the case in U.S. District Court that challenges Idaho’s ban on out-of-state circulators for independent presidential candidates. The plaintiff, Donald Daien, wants to be a volunteer petitioner in many states for candidates who believe in the same ideas that Ralph Nader supports. Daien was a volunteer petitioner for Nader in the past in several states.
