Pennsylvania attorney Phil Berg, who filed the first lawsuit on whether President-Elect Barack Obama meets the constitutional qualifications for president, had had two requests pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, both called Berg v Obama. On January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Berg’s request that the Court take his case for full review. His request for injunctive relief is on the January 16 conference. Odds are extremely high that it will also be denied, but that won’t be known until January 21. The Court is closed on January 19 and January 20. UPDATE: technically, the U.S. Supreme Court did not deny cert. Instead, the order is: “08-570. The petition for a writ of cert before judgment is denied.” That is slightly different than just “cert denied.”

On July 31, 2008, independent congressional candidate Andy Shugart filed a federal lawsuit, challenging the number of signatures needed for U.S. House. He complains that in his district, he needed over 6,100 signatures, yet an independent presidential candidate only needs 5,000 in Alabama. On January 9, several Alabama newspapers publicized the lawsuit, and a 45-second segment about the lawsuit was aired on National Public Radio stations in Alabama. Here is one of the newspaper stories.

The Alabama case is one of 4 lawsuits around the nation, challenging the number of signatures for independent candidates for the U.S. House. The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) helped bring each of these four cases into existence. The other cases are in Georgia, North Carolina, and Illinois. Like the Alabama case, the Georgia and North Carolina cases are still in the evidence-gathering state. The Illinois case already lost in the 7th circuit, and COFOE will soon decide whether to pay for appealing that to the U.S. Supreme Court. COFOE appreciates the donations it has received for these cases. Those who donate at least $25 to COFOE get a free subscription to the written Ballot Access News newsletter. COFOE is at PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147.

New Hampshire Senator Martha Fuller Clark (D-Portsmouth) says she will introduce a bill to expand the term of the Governor from two years to four years. New Hampshire and Vermont are the only states with two-year gubernatorial terms.

The current New Hampshire definition of “party” is “any political organization which at the preceding state general election received at least 4% of the total number of votes cast for any one of the following: the office of governor or the offices of United States Senators.” If Senator Clark’s bill provides that governors be elected in mid-term years, then this definition will need amending, since if the bill were in effect, there would be some election years in which neither of those offices would be on the ballot, such as 2012.