On April 26, a settlement was arranged in the federal lawsuit Gaughen v Dauphin County, m.d., 1:23cv-77. The case had been filed in Pennsylvania earlier this year, over the problem that Dauphin County officials had barred candidates from collecting signatures to get on the ballot in a public park. The county’s excuse had been that when the family that deeded the land to the public, it had specified that no political activity could be allowed in the park.

The plaintiffs were candidates of the Keystone Party, which did get on the ballot for statewide office in Pennsylvania last year. The county decided to settle the lawsuit, and the plaintiffs received $91,000. Here is the brief filed by the plaintiffs earlier this year. It can serve as a resource for individuals in the future who file similar lawsuits. Thanks to Andy Jacobs for this news.

On Thursday, April 27, the Montana House Administration Committee passed SB 565, the bill to drastically increase ballot access restrictions on minor parties and independent candidates. A different version of the bill had already passed the Senate. It increases the presidential independent petition from 5,000 signatures to 15,000 signatures. It increases the petition for a newly-qualifying party from 5,000 signatures to 5% of the number of voters who voted in the last election, which would be 30,604 signatures. It makes the same increase for non-presidential independent candidates.

It raises the number of votes needed for a party to remain ballot-qualified from 5% of the winning gubernatorial candidate’s vote, to 5% of the total number of votes cast.

It makes the distribution requirement for the petition to qualify a party much more difficult.

The Committee chair had said on April 26 that he would not hold a meeting on April 27. But then the Speaker of the House ordered him to hold the meeting, so the meeting was conducted with no public notice, in violation of the rules. No opponent of the bill was present. It is known that the vote was 10-8, with two Republicans and all the Democrats voting against the bill. UPDATE: here is a news story about the committee vote, although it erroneously says the petition to create a new party requires 5% of the winner’s vote in the last gubernatorial election. Actually the law requires 5,000 signatures.

Although the Minnesota House has passed a bill making the definition of a qualified party more severe, the Senate appears to have doubts about that idea. The House version of the omnibus bill, HF 1830, raises the vote test from 5% to 10%. But the Senate version of the omnibus bill, SF 3230, no longer does. Instead it has a new provision saying that in party primaries, no one can get on the ballot unless he or she has some support with the party organzation, or unless he or she submits a primary petition.

Under current law, no one needs a petition to get on a primary ballot. The whole idea of raising the vote test from 5% to 10% was because Democratic legislators believed that the two Marijuana Parties, which had qualified party status in the past (one of them still does) were being invaded by insincere candidates in their primaries, who didn’t care about legalization of marijuana but just wanted to be on the November ballot to attract votes that otherwise would mostly go to Democratic nominees.

The new alternate idea of requiring primary candidates to have some support with the party leaders, or to submit a primary petition, would solve the perceived problem with the marijuana parties. Then there would be less motivation for the legislature to eliminate such parties by raising the vote test for qualified status.