On January 9, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court held a trial on whether the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006 should be required to pay almost $89,668. This amount represents court costs, witness fees, and attorneys’ fees, for the process that removed Romanelli from the November 2006 ballot.

The head of the Pennsylvania Elections Department was on the stand, and admitted that Philadelphia County, among others, failed to record any write-ins for Romanelli or anyone else.

Romanelli’s attorney made arguments that the whole idea that a candidate can be forced to pay, violates the U.S. Supreme Court filing fee precedents, but the judge refused to hear the constitutional arguments. However, if an appeal is necessary, the constitutional arguments can be raised again. It was important that they were introduced at the trial level. One of the weaknesses of Ralph Nader’s parallel case on this same issue (which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear on January 8, 2007) was that the constitutional issues hadn’t been raised in the courts below.

Tennessee Libertarians are making a coordinated effort to find legislators willing to introduce a bill on ballot access for parties, and hope to have found one by the end of January.

In South Carolina, retired history professor J. David Gillespie is hoping to find a sponsor to repeal the state’s unreasonable ban on write-in candidates for president. South Carolina is the only state that allows write-ins generally (in November elections), yet bans write-ins for president. The state permitted them until 1982.

On January 10, 2007, Unity.08 sued the Federal Election Commission. Unity.08 is asking for an injunction allowing it to raise as much money from individuals as it can, during 2007. The case is Unity08 v FEC, 1:07-cv-53, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington DC.

Federal campaign laws that control how much money individuals may contribute to candidates cannot pertain to groups that don’t have any candidates or that don’t support any particular candidates. Nevertheless, in October 2006, the FEC ruled that no one may contribute more than $5,000 to Unity.08. Unity.08’s complaint says, “Unity08 has no candidates, and is in no way supporting or opposing any person as a candidate, clearly identified or otherwise. Under these circumstances, the FEC cannot legitimately be preventing Unity08 from corrupting a federal election or creating the appearance of corruption in the electoral process.”

The case was assigned to Judge Richard Roberts, a Clinton appointee.