On July 23, the Connecticut Working Families Party released a list of its legislative nominees. See this newspaper story. The reporter seemed surprised that the party had cross-endorsed two Republican candidates, but the Working Families Party in 2006 had also cross-endorsed two Republican legislative candidates, Senators Leonard Fasano and Tony Guglielmo.
Bill Collins is an independent candidate for the South Carolina State Senate, 38th district, this year. He is a well-known publisher and he could perhaps win the general election. His only opponent is a Republican. See this story. Independents were elected to the State House in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998, but South Carolina hasn’t had an independent, or a member of a minor party, in the State Senate since 1894.
Dick Anthony Heller, the plaintiff in last month’s famous U.S. Supreme Court decision that said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a gun, is petitioning as the Libertarian nominee for Delegate to the U.S. House from the District of Columbia. He needs 3,000 signatures.
If he gets 7,500 votes (or if Bob Barr gets 7,500 votes for president within D.C.), the D.C. Libertarian Party will be a ballot-qualified party for the first time. The last time the D.C. Libertarian Party made a push to win 7,500 votes for any partisan office (other than just president) was in 2000. In that year, it ran Robert Kampia for Delegate. He polled 4,594 votes.
The advantages of being a qualified party include obtaining a tally of how many registered members that party has, as well as a presidential primary, plus a primary for other office. The only other nationally-organized minor parties that have ever been qualified in the District are the Statehood Green Party currently, and the Socialist Workers Party, and the U.S. Labor Party, which had that status 1976 through 1978.
On July 22, nine U.S. Senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, introduced S.3308, to require the Veterans Administration to permit voter registration drives in its facilities. The VA operates 155 medical centers, 135 nursing homes, 717 ambulatory care and outpatient clinics, 45 residential rehabilitation programs, and 289 nonmedical vet centers. Voter registration activities are prohibited in all of them.
Earlier this month, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal were turned away from the doors of a VA facility in Connecticut, when they wished to enter to register residents of that facility.
Senator Reid said, “We must make it as easy as possible for all people to vote”, when he co-sponsored the bill. Reid seldom co-sponsors bills. The lead sponsors are Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.). The other co-sponsors are Hillary Clinton, Patrick Leahy, Patty Murray, Barack Obama, Charles Schumer, and Ron Wyden, all Democrats. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
On July 22, the 6th circuit heard arguments in Nader v Blackwell. This case is unusual, because it concerns personal liability for an elections official, Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State. Nader charges that when Blackwell permitted initiative circulators to hire out-of-state circulators in 2004, and simultaneously refused to let Nader hire out-of-state circulators, that conduct (which kept Nader off the ballot in 2004) arises to an injury for which Blackwell should be held accountable. The case is Nader v Blackwell, 07-4350. The three judges were Danny J. Boggs (a Reagan appointee), and Eric L. Clay and Karen Moore (Clinton appointees). The judges seemed interested in the case but it is difficult to predict how they will rule. Ohio law at the time forbade out-of-state circulators for both independent candidates and initiative petitions.
Ralph Nader is unique in the history of U.S. ballot access, for trying to redress wrongs that were done to him and his voters. Other presidential candidates who were kept off ballots, such as Henry Wallace in 1948, Eugene McCarthy in 1976, and John Anderson in 1980, were content to fight to keep themselves on various ballots. But they never took legal action of their own after the election to redress harms they had suffered. Only Nader has done that, most notably in his lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee, plus his complaint against the DNC filed with the Federal Election Commission, and also this particular Ohio lawsuit.
