She just announced and is already considered a front-runner, according to Third Party Watch.
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On March 17, the US Supreme Court accepted Bartlett v Strickland, the North Carolina districting case.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court is extremely likely to announce whether it will hear two election law cases:
1. Bartlett v Strickland, 07-689, a North Carolina districting case;
2. Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 07-953, a case involving federal campaign finance laws
The North Carolina redistricting case concerns whether courts have authority under the federal Voting Rights Act to draw districts that have a very high proportion of Black voters, yet not quite 50% Black. The state had drawn such a district but the State Supreme Court had invalidated it.
The Citizens United case involves whether a commercial movie with a partisan impact on an upcoming election must be subject to campaign finance laws.
Both cases were on the U.S. Supreme Court’s conference on Friday, March 14. The Court generally reveals what it decided on the following Monday, although there is no guarantee.
The Court will be issuing full opinions this week. Pending are the Washington state “top-two” primary case, and the Indiana government photo ID law for voting at the polls. There is no guarantee that these two particular cases will be decided this week, of course.
On March 12, Dennis Kucinich filed this brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th circuit, in his Texas primary ballot access case.
Kucinich had been excluded from the Texas Democratic presidential primary because he wouldn’t sign an oath, pledging to “fully support the Democratic nominee for President whoever that shall be.” The Texas Democratic Party wrote this oath, but does not impose a similar oath for anyone running in its primaries for office other than president. No other state Democratic Party, and no state unit of the Republican Party, has a similar oath.
Among the points made by Kucinich are: “The oath is either meaningless and thus protects no interest, or it is so meaningful that it can be the sole basis for excluding a candidate from appearing on the ballot.” The District Court had said the oath is legally meaningless and that someone in Kucinich’s position therefore had no real complaint against the oath. Kucinich vigorously contests the idea that the oath is meaningless.
Kucinich also argues, “If left unchecked, the district court’s analysis would permit a nefarious state political committee to promulgate rules designed to exclude certain candidates from the opportunity to win any of the state’s convention delegates.”
Kucinich also points out that in Jenness v Fortson, the U.S. Supreme Court said in footnote 25 that anyone with any political views is free to run in any major party primary. Therefore, it wasn’t so serious that third parties and independent candidates couldn’t get on the general election ballot. Footnote 25 of Jenness v Fortson is completely outmoded, given the more recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions protecting the right of political parties to run their own nominations process. Kucinich is doing a great service by reminding the 5th Circuit (and, perhaps, ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court itself) about this outmoded part of Jenness v Fortson.
Alaska Representative Max Gruenberg’s bill to improve ballot access has a hearing at 8 am on March 20, Thursday. The bill eases the definition of “political party”, and is HB 402.
The current definition is extremely complicated and was last revised in 2004. The existing law is wildly irrational because the registration test moves up and down erratically. Under the existing law, the Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified, but the party will lose its status after the November 2008 election because the registration requirement will rocket up from 7,124 to approximately 10,500. Also under the existing law, the Green Party is not ballot-qualified. The Alaskan Independence Party is ballot-qualified.
HB 402 would simply the definition of “party” so that it is a group that has 2,500 registrants.