On November 6, three Reform Party leaders sued certain other Reform Party leaders in federal court in Elkins, West Virginia. The case is Heinemann v Kennedy, 2:07-cv-91. The defendants include Beverly Kennedy and her attorneys. The three plaintiffs are Jerome Heinemann, Skip Foley, and Jeanne Doogs. The lawsuit attacks the defendants for having filed a lawsuit in Texas state courts, after having lost an earlier intra-party fight in federal court in Florida. The West Virginia case is pro se.
See this commentary, on Lou Dobbs’ prediction that an independent candidate will be elected president in 2008. Lou Dobbs is a commentator on CNN. Thanks to Glenn Brown.
At least one member of the Constitution Party was elected on November 7, 2007. Scott C. Stevens won a spot on the city council of Warren, Michigan. Warren is Detroit’s largest suburb. The voters were asked to choose 9 at-large members. 18 candidates appeared on the ballot. Stevens’ vote total was 12,519, the 2nd highest. Thanks to Third Party Watch.
On November 8, the Michigan Senate passed HB 4507, to save the state’s presidential primary. Since it didn’t pass with a two-thirds margin, it cannot take effect in time for the 2008 primary season. Also the House seems uninterested in the bill. When the bill had passed the House, several months ago, it did not deal with the presidential primary. Since the Senate added presidential primary provisions to the bill, it must return to the House in order to pass.
The bill eliminates the existing provision that says if any part of the presidential primary bill is unconstitutional, then the entire primary falls. The bill would thus eliminate the problem with who may see the voter participant list (that provision was held unconstitutional on November 7). The bill also gives each party the right to decide which names appear on its own presidential primary ballot. No one could withdraw without swearing that he or she is not running for president. That would force individuals like John Edward and Barack Obama to be listed. Current law lets them withdraw from Michigan’s primary even if they are running in other states, and they have withdrawn.
Democrats control the House, and Michigan Democrats seem to be more interested in holding a caucus. UPDATE: the legislature has adjourned until Tuesday, November 13. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this.
The oldest election law case is Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, which was filed in 2000 and is still in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The case concerns the constitutionality of a postal regulation making it illegal for petition circulators to be on interior post office sidewalks. Several months ago, the Judge arranged for the Postal Service to do a large random sample of postmasters, to see whether postmasters have noticed people petitioning, handing out leaflets, and engaged in other First Amendment activity on those sidewalks.
The survey replies are now in. There are 1,000 pages of data. A very preliminary look at them suggests that there is a lot of expressive activity on post office sidewalks. This is good for the lawsuit, because it supports the idea that post office sidewalks are a traditional public forum. However, this case is likely to take another six months before a decision is reached.
