On December 5, Ralph Nader filed this response brief in Serody v Nader, the case over whether his bank in the District of Columbia should be required to give about $80,000 of Nader’s money to the people who challenged his petition in Pennsylvania in 2004.

The rebuttal brief is only 10 pages. Nader had already pointed out to the D.C. court that the Pennsylvania court order should not be blindly accepted, because the proceedings before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had been tainted. Nader had earlier alleged to the D.C. court that the attorneys for his opponents had close ties to various members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that had not been revealed.

The response by Nader’s opponents had been to confirm the truth of Nader’s charges, but to say that no law had been broken. The recent Nader response points out that legality is not the point. Judicial ethics rules require attorneys to reveal connections between themselves and the judges hearing their case.

On December 4, the Federal Election Commission filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Davis v FEC. Here is a copy of the FEC brief.

In October 2007, Democratic U.S. House candidate Jack Davis had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his challenge to the part of the McCain-Feingold law called the “millionaires’ Amendment.” That law says if a candidate for Congress spends at least $350,000 of his own money on his own campaign, then his or her opponents may receive vastly greater contributions from individuals.

Davis is a Democrat who ran for Congress from New York in 2006 and who was narrowly defeated. Since Davis had contributed more than $350,000 to his own campaign, his Republican incumbent opponent has taken advantage of the “Millionaires” law to receive campaign contributions from individuals in excess of the normal limit. Davis had then challenged the law, but had lost in a 3-judge U.S. District Court. He argues that since the U.S. Supreme Court has said that the only permissible reason for campaign contributions limits is to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, the Millionaires’ law cannot stand.

The FEC argues that Davis doesn’t have standing. It also defends the idea that campaign finance limits are also for the purpose of “equalizing resources.” Finally, the FEC cites many cases which upheld laws that hobble candidates who fund their own campaigns. However, all the cases the FEC mentions involve situations in which public funding is in place. There is no public funding for Congressional candidates, so that FEC argument is not very persuasive.

Two ballot access activists in Georgia, Mike Crane and John Dashler, have been making headway lobbying the Georgia legislature. They have found a legislative sponsor for a bill next year to improve ballot access. Also they have been told by the House Committee chairman who would have jurisdiction over the bill that the bill will progress out of his Committee. That is a welcome change from 2006, when that same chairman blocked HB 927.