On November 17, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sandra Newman announced that she is quitting the court, to enter into private practice. This means that Pennsylvania voters will elect a replacement, in an actual partisan competitive election, in November 2007. This, in turn, means that even if no helpful changes are made to Pennsylvania ballot access law during 2007, the 2008 requirement will probably be no more than 28,000 signatures or so.

If no justice were quitting either the Supreme Court or the Commonwealth Court (and if the law doesn’t improve)approximately 50,000 signatures would be needed in 2008.

Justice Newman wrote the opinion In re Nader, which said that Nader must pay approximately $80,000 in court costs for the proceedings in 2004 that ruled him off the ballot. Nader is about to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that decision.