On June 26, the Connecticut House defeated an amendment to the budget bill, SB 1801, that would have defunded public financing for candidates for state office. The amendment was offered by Corky Mazurek, a Democrat from Wolcott. His amendment was defeated 37-98. All Republicans but one voted for it, but all Democrats except three voted against it.
The regular session of the Connecticut legislature ended several weeks ago, but the legislature is sitting in special session for the budget bills.
On June 3, a California State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling, that said the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party had a right to expel a member of its county central committee. On June 29, the State Court of Appeals denied a rehearing. The case is Wilson v San Luis Obispo County Democratic Central Committee. See the 19-page decision here. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
On June 26, the Green Parties of Iowa and Wisconsin jointly filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Davenport, Iowa. The issue is the city’s policy of banning petitioning at its annual street fair, the Bix Street Fest. The ACLU is representing the parties. The case is Bussiere v Davenport, southern district, 3:09-cv-101.
The incident that prompted the lawsuit arose last year, when Green Party volunteers were collecting signatures in Davenport to get Cynthia McKinney on the ballot. The city believes that the organization that sponsors the street festival has a right to curtail First Amendment activity on public streets during that festival. The city lost a similar case in 1999 over the same issue.
On June 29, the Federal Election Commission filed this brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. The issue is whether the federal government can prohibit donations of more than $5,000 apiece from individuals to a new political party that says it intends to qualify for the ballot and then nominate a presidential candidate.
The FEC attorney who wrote this brief doesn’t appear to understand that in most states, a group can qualify itself as a new political party before it has chosen any candidates. The brief says on page 7 and 8 that Unity08 planned to place “placeholders” on the ballot, before it chose its actual presidential candidate. But in 38 states, a group doesn’t need “placeholder” candidates; it doesn’t need any candidates; it simply qualifies itself as a party.
The FEC brief can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether it considers Unity08 a political party. Pages 13 and 41 discuss the nominees of Unity08. Any group with “nominees” is a political party, by definition. Yet pages 50-54 argue that Unity08 is not a political party.
The brief on page 16 says Unity08 “engaged in no electoral activity leading up to the 2008 general election”, yet in truth Unity08 qualified itself as a ballot-qualified party in both Florida and Mississippi. The brief says that Unity08 would not have had any candidates for office other than president and vice-president, but that statement isn’t necessarily true. In nine states in which Unity08 expected to qualify itself as a political party, it would have been entitled to a government-provided primary for all partisan office, and anyone who registered in the party would have been free to run in its primaries for Congress or state office. These nine states were, or would have been, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.
On June 29, the Oregon State Senate passed SB 326 again, by a vote of 25-5. It had passed once before but had to get another vote because the House had altered it. The bill is now through the legislature. It repeals the 2005 “primary screenout” and it also legalizes fusion.
A “primary screenout” is a law saying primary voters can’t sign for an independent candidate.
Assuming the Governor signs the bill, Oregon will be the second state to have expanded fusion in the last two years. Connecticut also expanded fusion recently. “Fusion” is the ability of two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate.
