On November 21, the national Voting Rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union asked all active judges in the 10th circuit to rehear Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Vigil-Giron. The issue for the 10th circuit is a technical one involving court procedure. The U.S. District Court had refused to allow evidence to be presented, and the three judges on the 10th circuit had then said that the US District Court’s action was permitted, because an ACLU document describing what evidence it wanted to establish was too short (it was five pages long).

The underlying issue in the case is whether it is constitutional for New Mexico to require one petition to qualify the party, and then, after the party is qualified and nominates its candidates by convention, whether each nominee must then get his or her own separate petition. The original case had pointed out that it would be absurd to expect someone who wins a major party primary to then circulate a petition to be on the November ballot.

On November 20, another hearing was held in Texas Reform Party v Reform Party of the USA, in state court in Dallas, Texas. This case had been filed by the “Dallas” (Foster) faction of the national party on September 14, 2007. A hearing held in September had resulted in a temporary injunction against the “Yuma” (Martin/O’Hara) faction of the party from representing itself as national officers of the Reform Party.

However, at the November 20 hearing, the judge dissolved the injunction, and struck all the evidence that had been presented in September by the people who had filed the case. John Blare argued for the defendants, and he appears to have successfully persuaded the court that the three state parties of the Reform Party who filed the lawsuit were not bona fide state Reform Parties.

On November 20, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Riley v Kennedy, no. 07-77. This is an appeal brought by Alabama Governor Bob Riley, to overturn a U.S. District Court 3-judge ruling that denied him the ability to appoint a replacement county commissioner. The lower had court said there should be a special election to fill the vacancy.

The issue is complicated and involves the interaction of the federal Voting Rights Act (especially the pre-clearance part of that law) with any state’s State courts. The case is even more complicated because the legislature had changed the law a few years ago on how to handle vacancies in county commissions. The case is not about the virtues of holding special elections versus the virtures of filling vacancies by gubernatorial appointment.