Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut did not file to be on the New York Democratic presidential primary. 5,000 signatures are required for Democrats in New York. The six Democrats who did file in New York are Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich, Obama and Richardson.
On November 30, the 6th circuit heard oral argument in Citizens for Tax Reform v Deters, 07-3031. The issue is Ohio’s law, banning paying initiative and candidate petitioners on a per signature basis. The hearing seemed to go well. The three judges were Julia Gibbons and David McKeague (Bush Jr. appointees) and Eugene Siler (a Bush Sr. appointee).
Judge McKeague was especially interested in the aspect of the Ohio law that even seems to make it impossible to pay high producers a bonus. The law is somewhat ambiguous, and the attorney for the state didn’t seem willing to help the judges resolve the ambiguity.
The law had been declared unconstitutional in the U.S. District Court. The state says if it loses again, it will ask for U.S. Supreme Court review. A decision will probably come out in the first half of 2008, although occasionally these decisions take as long as a year from the hearing date.
Six names will be on the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party’s presidential primary ballot in February: Jared Ball, Elaine Brown, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, Ralph Nader, and Kat Swift.
Massachusetts doesn’t require candidates in presidential primaries to file; the law says the Secretary of State should place candidates on the ballot who are mentioned in the news media. In the case of minor parties, states with laws like this generally let the state party chair decide whom to list, and this list was approved by the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party’s leadership.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued three opinions on December 10, it didn’t release any election law decisions. The two election law cases that are pending were argued on October 1 and October 3, and are from Washington state and New York.
The next possible day for decisions is January 7, 2008.
There are many election law issues surrounding presidential elections, in which people assume the laws are far more restrictive, than they actually are.
1. In approximately half the states, fusion is legal for president. It is impossible to say exactly how many states, because sometimes the details matter (is it fusion between two qualified parties, or a qualified party and an unqualified party, or between a party and an independent).
2. Sore loser laws do not generally apply to presidential candidates. Presidential candidates who ran in presidential primaries, and then appeared on the general election ballot under a different label, have included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, John B. Anderson, Lyndon LaRouche, and David Duke. No state has ever kept a presidential candidate off the general election ballot because he was a “sore loser”, except that Mississippi kept Lyndon LaRouche off as an independent in 1992 on those grounds. He tried to sue, but couldn’t obtain an attorney.
The logical basis for “sore loser” laws does not apply to presidential candidates, because the true candidates in November are candidates for presidential elector. Article Two of the Constitution makes this clear. Presidential candidates’ names appear on November ballots in their capacity as labels for competing slates of electors, not as candidates per se.
