On December 21, the President signed an executive order raising congressional pay from $165,200 to $168,800. Since filing fees in many states are calculated as a percentage of the salary of the office being sought, this will cause a 2% in filing fees for candidates for Congress in those states.

Earlier Congress passed a resolution saying that their pay raise won’t be effective until mid-February 2007. Otherwise it would have been effective January 1, 2007.

On December 22, Pennsylvania released its official returns. Carl Romanelli was credited with 645 write-ins. He was the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate who fought to be on the ballot. His true write-in total will never be known, since 23 of Pennsylvania’s counties didn’t canvass write-ins. These 23 counties include some of the most populous counties in the state. They include Centre (the county that includes State College), Erie, and Philadelphia Counties.

Other write-in totals include 217 for Marakay Rogers, the Green Party candidate for Governor; 92 for Hagan Smith, Constitution Party candidate for Governor; 143 for Russ Diamond, independent for Governor; 28 for Carl Edwards, Constitution Party candidate for U.S. Senate; and 19 for Tom Martin, Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate.

All states have now released their final election returns. The January 1, 2007 paper edition of Ballot Access News will have state-by-state totals for each party for US Senate, US House, and gubernatorial elections.

COFOE (the Coalition for Free & Open Elections) greatly appreciates the contributions it has received from some of you this year. COFOE helped pay for the ballot access cases that won in September 2006 in Ohio and Illinois, and your contributions made that possible.

Now, COFOE has paid $1,000 toward the printing of a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Washington state lawsuit over top-two primaries; and COFOE has paid $250 toward the fee for appealing Schaefer v Lamone to the 4th circuit. Schaefer v Lamone challenges the Maryland law on ballot order.

If COFOE had additional money at this time, it could also pay an attorney to do an amicus curiae brief in Wasson v Bradbury, the federal lawsuit against Oregon’s law making it illegal for voters to sign for an independent candidate and also vote in a partisan primary. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law in 1974, the Oregon law has some legal vulnerabilities that the Texas law did not. However, the plaintiff in Wasson v Bradbury has not yet made these points, and he may never do so. Therefore, an amicus curiae brief is badly needed.

If you are willing to contribute to COFOE for the Oregon brief, or just to help COFOE in general, please send any contributions to either Ballot Access News, PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147, or to COFOE’s treasurer, Alice Kelsey, 192 Lewis Rd., Northport NY 11768. Make the check out to COFOE.

Anyone who contributes at least $25 to COFOE gets a free subscription to Ballot Access News for a year.

On December 21, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the McCain-Feingold law is unconstitutional when it is applied in certain situations. The case is Wisconsin Right to Life v FEC, civ 04-1260. The vote was 2-1.

In this particular case, the McCain-Feingold law made it illegal for Wisconsin Right to Life, a corporation, to run broadcast ads (paid for out of its Corporate treasury) within 60 days of an election if that ad mentions a candidate for Congress.

In this instance, the ad Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to run merely asked listeners to ask both their U.S. Senators to oppose any filibuster of any judicial nominees. The ad made no mention of the fact that one of Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators was running for re-election.

Judges Richard Leon and David Sentelle signed the majority opinion. They said this particular ad clearly is not a campaign ad. Since the U.S. Supreme Court had said in 2003 that “as applied” challenges to McCain-Feingold should be permitted, they accepted that invitation. The dissenting judge, Richard W. Roberts, said that the case is not yet ready for summary judgment and that a trial should have been held to ascertain the true motivations of the people who wrote and paid for the ad.

This ruling is good news for Unity.08. Another portion of the McCain-Feingold law, not at issue in this case, made it illegal for individuals to give large sums of money to political parties that engage in federal campaign activity. When the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold law was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, that Court said that if the McCain-Feingold law injures new and minor parties, that an as-applied challenge could also be made in the future to that part of the McCain-Feingold law. Now that one court (the 3-judge U.S. District Court in D.C.) has already ruled that McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional in certain situations, it should be easier for Unity.08 to bring its own lawsuit, alleging that McCain-Feingold, as applied to a new party, is also unconstituitonal. Unity.08 is currently handicapped by an FEC ruling that says no one may give it more than $5,000.

The lame duck session of the Ohio legislature is still sitting, and there had been some hope that HB 638 would pass this month. HB 638 permits candidates who use the Ohio independent candidate procedure to choose a partisan label, which would be printed on the petition and on November ballots. However, it is clear that the bill will not pass before the legislature goes home on December 22.

The 11th circuit will hold oral arguments in Swanson v Bennett the week of March 19-23, 2007, in Atlanta. This is the case that challenges the number of signatures and the petition deadline.

In the November 7, 2006 election, more votes were cast for Independent candidates for US House in Rhode Island, than were cast for Republican nominees for US House in that state.

This is due to the strong showing of independent candidate Rod Driver in the 2nd district. Driver polled 52,729 votes in a 2-person race against the incumbent Democrat. No Republican ran in that district. The Republican nominee in the state’s other district (the 1st district) only polled 41,836 votes, and an independent candidate in the 1st district polled 13,634 votes, for a combined independent vote in the state of 66,363.

Rod Driver had been a Democratic member of the Rhode Island legislature from 1987 to 1994. As an independent candidate for congress in 2006, he campaigned against U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The Democratic National Committee says it won’t choose its national convention site for 2008, until January 2007. The leading contenders are New York city and Denver. Four years ago at this time, the Democratic Party had already chosen its 2004 site, Boston. Thanks to poster #1 for making this posting more accurate.

Republicans announced months ago that they are meeting in Minneapolis in 2008. See the June 1, 2006 B.A.N. for a list of major party sites and dates of presidential conventions going back to 1856.

On December 20, the Libertarian Party’s brief was filed with the 10th circuit, in the ballot access case against New Mexico. The lawsuit had lost in U.S. District Court, in September 2006. The lawsuit challenges New Mexico’s practice of requiring qualified minor parties to nominate by convention and then requiring each person nominated to submit his or her own separate petition (signed by 1% of the last vote cast). No other state except Pennsylvania requires the NOMINEES of a qualified party to submit a petition. The logical equivalent would be a law requiring primary winners to submit petitions to be on the November ballot.

On December 7, proponents of an advisory Illinois initiative asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case. The 7th circuit had upheld Illinois laws on how advisory initiative petitions are circulated and checked. Specifically, Illinois law requires that election officials check a random sample of 10% of the signatures, and if the sample reveals that the number of valid signatures is less than 95% of the legal requirement, the petition is deemed invalid. The initiative proponents also challenge the law that prevents them from mixing signatures from different counties on the same sheet of paper (also certain cities must also be separated out).

The case is Protect Marriage Illinois v Orr, 06-787.

This makes at least 7 election law cases now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. None of them has yet been chosen to be heard by that court. The others are:
1. New York State Bd. of Elections v Lopez Torres, 06-766 (primary ballot access)
2. Nader v Seroty, 06-696 (mandatory costs assessed against a candidate who is removed from the ballot, Pennsylvania)
3. Romanelli v Election Board, 06-742 (procedures for checking petitions, Pennsylvania)
4. Initiative & Referendum Institute v Utah, 06-534 (can state require initiatives on certain subjects to receive two-thirds of vote?)
5. Wexler v Anderson, 06-401 (are vote-counting machines with no audit trail unconstitutional?)
6. Washington v Republican Party, 06-713 & 06-730 (is top-two primary unconstitutional when party objects and when party labels are placed on ballot?)