On July 20, Unity08 filed this rebuttal brief in its lawsuit to overturn an FEC ruling that said individuals could only contribute $5,000 to Unity08.

The brief argues that Unity08 intends to carry out its mission in the presidential election of 2012, although it acknowledges the name would change to Unity12. The brief also points out that Unity08 never had any intention of financially supporting the presidential candidate that would have been chosen, if it had held its on-line convention in 2008. The candidate would have been expected to raise his or her own money and plan his or her own campaign.

The Arkansas Green Party held a statewide meeting July 18-19 and decided to sue the state over its definition of “political party”. The party was removed from the ballot in November 2008 because it polled under 3% for president. However, it polled over 20% for U.S. Senate, and its three U.S. House candidates averaged over 19%.

The Green Party of Arkansas is the first party, in any state, since the beginning of ballot access laws in 1889, to have ever elected a state legislator while the state was simultaneously removing it from the ballot.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said repeatedly that the purpose of ballot access laws is to keep candidates and parties off the ballot if those candidate or parties lack a modicum of support. “Modicum” is defined to be “a small amount.” It is absurd for Arkansas, or any state, to say that a party that just elected a state legislator, and polled over 20% of the statewide vote, lacks a modicum of support.

There have been very few federal precedents over any state’s definition of “political party.”

In 2008, five individuals filed in the Florida Green Party primary to run for the state legislature. Green Party leaders were unaware of these individuals before they filed, and the candidates shunned all publicity and all contacts with party activists. The suspicion grew that Republican Party activists had recruited these candidates and had paid their filing fees.

Eventually, the state chair of the Florida Green Party sued one of these candidates to determine who had paid her filing fee. The defendant-candidate was to have been deposed on July 15, 2009, but because her attorney had resigned, that proceeding is postponed for two weeks, or possibly longer, while she finds another attorney. King v Roman, state court, Pasco Co.