The Virginia Attorney General said recently that the state will appeal Miller v Brown to the 4th circuit. Miller v Brown is the US District Court decision that said if a political party wants to exclude non-members from its primary, it may do so.
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On December 12, the state chair of the New York Independence Party, Frank McKay, dropped his appeal of the intra-party dispute over the identity of the true officers of the Staten Island party. This means that the Staten Island party officers are now undisputed. They are allies of Lenora Fulani.
In recent months, McKay legal efforts to wrest control of the Brooklyn and Queens parties have also failed, although appeals are still pending. Manhatten’s party is also controlled by Fulani allies, and Manhatten is not contested.
Fulani allies also won a court battle over the Westchester County party, on November 29, 2006. Lehrer v Cavallo, 18071-06. The court found that the county organizing meeting held in September by McKay forces was fundamentally unfair, and ordered that a new meeting be held in the next few weeks.
Even if Fulani allies win complete control of the New York city branches of the party, which seems likely, the New York city branches only hold 25% of the voting power on the party’s state committee. The state committee holds the power to nominate candidates for statewide office (this power can be overturned by a primary only with a petition signed by 15,000 party members, something that is very difficult to achieve).
Ralph Nader’s attempts to get on ballots in 2004, and Democratic Party attempts to keep him off, provoked many lawsuits. Four of those cases are still pending. The status of each is:
1. Pennsylvania. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Nader’s appeal at its conference on January 5, 2007. Whether the Court will take the case won’t be announced until January 8, 2007, at the earliest. The issue is whether a candidate may be required to pay all the costs of determining whether or not the petition is valid. Nader v Seroty, 06-696. Nader’s opponents have waived their right to file a brief asking the Court not to hear the case.
2. Ohio. The new Nader case (filed September 29, 2006) on whether a state can require a circulator to be a registered voter is pending in U.S. District Court. All briefs have been filed. Nader v Blackwell, 2:06-cv-821, s.d. Everyone agrees that the law is unconstitutional (the U.S. Supreme Court settled it in 1999). The only real issue is whether the court will accept that Nader has standing to pursue the issue. An earlier Nader lawsuit against Ohio’s law was sidetracked.
3. Hawaii. The State Supreme Court has been sitting on Nader’s case on the state’s flawed procedures for checking signatures for two years. The Court could either issue an opinion, set the case for oral argument, or remand the case, at any time. Nader also has a case in federal court in Hawaii against the law that requires an independent presidential candidate to collect five times as many signatures as are needed for a new party. The federal case is on hold, pending activity by the State Supreme Court. Recently the federal court asked Nader’s attorney to tell it what the State Supreme Court has done. The attorney, of course, could only respond that we are all still waiting for the State Supreme Court.
4. Arizona. Nader’s attorney recently filed a brief in the 9th circuit against the state’s independent presidential petition deadline of early June, and against the state’s policy of not letting out-of-staters circulate that kind of petition. The state has asked for more time to respond. Nader v Brewer, 06-16251.
On October 13, the Green, Libertarian and Conservative Parties of New Jersey had filed a lawsuit in New Jersey state court, over several election law issues of discrimination against minor parties. The state still hasn’t answered the complaint, and is technically in default. However, the attorney for the state has hinted that some of the issues in the case may be settled by stipulation. We will probably know which issues those are in the next week. The case is Green Party of NJ v State, MER-C-125-06.
On December 12, voters in Texas’ 23rd US House district chose Ciro Rodriguez to be the district’s new member of Congress. He is a Democrat. The vote was Rodriguez 54%, incumbent Henry Bonilla (a Republican) 46%.
The 23rd district is one of five districts in Texas that had its boundaries redrawn in the middle of 2006, because the US Supreme Court had ruled that the old boundaries violated the Voting Rights Act. Because the Texas primary had already occurred when the lines were redrawn, Texas re-opened filing for these five districts and let anyone run in November. Because there were multiple candidates from each party, Texas also provided that these 5 districts should have run-offs on December 12 if no one got a majority in November.
The other 4 newly-drawn districts did not require a run-off. But in the 23rd district, a run-off was needed because no one had polled 50% in November. Incumbent Bonilla had polled 48.6% of the vote; Rodriguez had polled 19.9%; two other Democrats had each polled between 12% and 11%; and five other candidates had split the remainder. It is unusual that a candidate who polled less than 20% of the vote in the first round, won the run-off.