On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court held a conference to decide which cases to take. It released the news of which cases it did accept, immediately after the conference. One of the cases is a campaign finance case, Davis v Federal Election Commission, 07-320. The lower court had upheld the law. The issue is part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, called the “Millionaires’ Amendment.” The law says that restrictions on how much money individuals can give to federal candidates are eased, when one of the candidates in the race funds his own campaign with at least $350,000. Jack Davis was the candidate who spent a large amount of his own money. He was a New York Democratic nominee for the US House in the 26th district in 2006. He argues that he was harmed because his Republican opponent, incumbent Thomas Reynolds, was permitted to receive triple the normal amount of contributions. Also Reynolds was permitted to coordinate his campaign with the Republican Party to a degree that is normally illegal.

Davis’ most interesting argument is that since the purpose of campaign restrictions on large donations is to prevent corruption, the “Millionaires’ Amendment” itself promotes corruption, and that the law only exists to help incumbents.

The government argues that Davis doesn’t even have standing to complain, since Congressman Reynolds didn’t actually take advantage of those special legal advantages.

Rhode Island requires 1,000 signatures for candidates to gain a place on a presidential primary ballot. The deadline for submitting these signatures was December 26. However, Rhode Island didn’t finish checking the signtures until January 10.

The checking process revealed that both Joe Biden and Bill Richardson failed to submit 1,000 valid signatures. It is true that Biden withdrew on January 3, and that Richardson withdrew on January 10. However, they hadn’t withdrawn during the petitioning period (in December 2007). Therefore, these Biden/Richardson instances are additional evidence that even modest petition requirements are sometimes difficult for campaigns with significant resources.

Most states don’t require “important” major party presidential candidates to submit any signatures to get on presidential primary ballots. Among the states that do, every such state had at least one instance of an “important” presidential candidate failing to get enough valid signatures. Candidates who failed in at least one petition drive include not only Biden and Richardson, but Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Fred Thompson, and Duncan Hunter.

Candidates who did qualify for the Rhode Island Democratic primary are Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich and Obama. Candidates who qualified for the Republican primary are Hugh Cort, Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, McCain, Paul, Romney and Thompson.

A lower state court in Mississippi will hear State ex rel Hood v Barbour on January 14. This is the case over whether state law requires a special election for U.S. Senate in the spring of 2008, or November 2008. The vacancy was caused when Trent Lott resigned last month. Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news.

Also, the 5th circuit will hear Mississippi Democratic Party v Barbour in the first week in March. This is the case over whether the U.S. Constitution protects the Democratic Party’s ability to keep non-members from voting in its primaries.