When a lawsuit is filed, alleging that a certain state law is unconstitutional, the first response from the government is always called an “answer”. Usually, court rules require an answer to be filed within a month of the filing of the lawsuit. On October 13, 2006, several minor parties filed a lawsuit against New Jersey election laws that discriminate against political parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties. Finally, on February 13, 2007, a full four months later, the New Jersey Attorney General’s answer has been received by attorneys for the minor parties.

The answer is usually a boring document, but it provides an opportunity for government attorneys to concede that certain points in the lawsuit are so valid, that the government doesn’t intend to fight the lawsuit. The minor parties had already won an earlier lawsuit in 2001, called Council of Alternate Political Parties v State of New Jersey. In the 2001 lawsuit, the court had ruled that voters must be permitted to register as members of unqualified parties.

The state’s response to the 2001 lawsuit was to let voters register as members of the five specific minor parties that had brought that lawsuit, but no others. The five minor parties that had won the 2001 lawsuit were the Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, and Reform Parties, so ever since 2001, voters have been able to register into those parties (as well as the Democratic and Republican Parties), but no others. The legislature has never amended the election law to provide a system for identifying which minor parties have registration rights, nor has the State Elections Division ever issued any regulations on this subject.

In the recent case, one of the issues is that voters should also be able to register into the Conservative Party of New Jersey (the Conservative Party of New Jersey is active, and regularly places candidates on the ballot). Attorneys for the recent case had thought that surely, the state would concede this point. But, the state did not even concede this point.

On February 8, the Montana Senate defeated SB 290, the National Popular Vote plan for presidential elections. The vote was 30-20. The sponsor, Senator Rick Laible, is a Republican. However, on the Senate floor, he was the only Republican to vote for the bill. All other Republicans, as well as 6 Democrats, voted against it. This is the first instance in any state at which any Democratic state legislators have voted against the plan. If all the Democratic Senators had voted for it, it would have narrowly passed.