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 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.

Oregon State Senator Ben Westlund announced on December 12 that he has registered as a Democrat. He had been re-elected in 2004 as a Republican, but he had become an independent in 2005 and had qualified as an independent candidate for Governor in 2006. However, even though he got on the ballot successfully, he withdrew his name from the ballot and endorsed the Democratic nominee. It is believed that Senator Westlund, as a Democrat, may try to influence the Oregon Democratic Party to stop being so hostile to independent candidates. Oregon Democrats are responsible for making ballot access for independent candidates much worse during 2005.