A U.S. District Court in Sacramento heard arguments in Warnken v Schwarzenegger, 2:08cv-2891, on January 21. The case is very unusual. It argues that the U.S. Constitution guarantees that U.S. citizens have a right to have a meaningful opportunity to communicate with their state legislators. Then, it argues that because California has an average of 424,135 residents in each Assembly district, it is impossible for an ordinary person to have that communication with his or her legislator. No other state has an average population greater than 139,360 in a lower house state legislative chamber. See www.californiacommonwealth.com for more about the lawsuit.

The judge did not dismiss the case, and said he would study Warnken’s brief before ruling on the state’s motion to dismiss. The state argues that Warnken doesn’t have standing.

Besides the 8 states already listed in a blog post yesterday, Vermont also has a bill to establish the National Popular Vote Plan. It is S 34.

A ballot access lawsuit is currently pending in U.S. District Court in Georgia, against the procedures for an independent candidate for U.S. House to get on the ballot. The state has submitted an affidavit from Wesley B. Tailor, Georgia’s Elections Director, which lists minor party and independent candidates who have successfully petitioned in Georgia in the last 30 years. The purpose of the affidavit is to show that Georgia ballot access procedures are not unduly difficult.

The affidavit erroneously says that one independent candidate for the U.S. House qualified in 1982 “in accordance with the procedure outlined in the O.C.G.A. sections 21-2-170 and 21-2-180.” However, the independent who qualified for the U.S. House in 1982, Billy McKinney (father of Cynthia McKinney) did not qualify in accordance with the cited sections. Those sections say that a petition signed by 5% of the number of registered voters is needed. But McKinney got on the ballot with a petition of approximately 1% of the registered voters. The normal 5% petition was not in effect in 1982 in the 4th and 5th districts, because a 3-judge U.S. District Court had redrawn the boundaries of those two districts in the summer of 1982, leaving no time for anyone to submit a 5% petition.

The affidavit also says that the Reform Party successfully completed a statewide petition in 1998, so that its nominee for Lieutenant Governor, Michael Novosel, appeared on the ballot. Actually, Novosel was on the ballot in 1998 with no petition needed, since the Reform Party had met the vote test in 1996 to be on the statewide ballot automatically.

The affidavit also says that an independent candidate for Commissioner of Labor, William Costa, successfully petitioned in 2002. Actually Costa was the Libertarian Party nominee, and appeared on the ballot automatically because the Libertarian Party has automatic ballot status for statewide office and the Libertarian Party had nominated him.

Attorneys for the plaintiff-candidate Faye Coffield will attempt to bring this information to the Court.