On October 16, Cicero Booker, candidate for Connecticut State Senate, 15th district, received $85,000 from the Connecticut state office that administers the public funding program. He is a member of the Independent Party, and is also the nominee of the Working Families Party. Connecticut permits fusion. Booker’s only opponent is Democrat Senator Joan Hartley, who has been in the legislature for 18 years.

In order to receive full public funding, Booker had to collect signatures from 20% of the last vote cast inside his State Senate district. That was 2,702 signatures. He managed this feat in four weeks by hiring paid circulators who were willing to work for a relatively low rate of pay. The Connecticut law did not permit Booker to spend more than $5,000 in the period before he qualified for Public Funding. Booker also had to obtain contributions of $15,000. Amounts over $100 did not count. Booker’s Democratic opponent also had to raise $15,000, but she didn’t need to collect any signatures in order to qualify for full public funding. The Connecticut law requires signatures in order to qualify for full public funding, if the candidate is not a nominee of a party that had polled 20% in the last election. The Independent Party polled 11.8% for State Senate in the 15th district in the last election.

The Independent Party was founded in 2002 just as a party within Waterbury, but it has expanded statewide. This year, it did its first statewide ballot access petition, to put its presidential nominee, Ralph Nader, on the Connecticut ballot. Here is an article from the New Haven Advocate of October 16 about the public funding law and its discriminatory effects.

On October 17, the 6th circuit refused to issue an injunction, putting Tennessee State Senator Rosalind Kurita on the November ballot. After the election is over, the 6th circuit will weigh the constitutionality of Tennessee’s refusal to put the winner of the Democratic primary on the November ballot, when the Democratic Party doesn’t want her on the ballot. In the meantime she is pursuing her write-in campaign. UPDATE: this post, as originally worded, was mistaken. Kurita did not ask the 6th circuit to overturn the decision; instead she merely asked for a rehearing from the U.S. District Court Judge. As of October 20, she is still undecided about seeking relief from the 6th circuit.

On October 17, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the order of the Commonwealth Court, in the case called “In re: the Substitute Nomination Certificate of Bob Barr”, no. 70 MAP 2008.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not yet written an opinion, but it probably will. The output for October 17 is simply, “And now, this 17th day of October 2008, the Order of the Commonwealth Court is affirmed.” The decision is unanimous. The issue had been whether there is anything wrong with the practice of showing a stand-in presidential candidate on a minor party or independent candidate petition. The Republican Party had hired seven attorneys to press its point that the practice of using a stand-in is corrupt. The Republican Party’s theory is that if the stand-in knows that he or she is a stand-in, that is fraud.