Montana Wants to Help Arizona Defend Early Petition Deadline in U.S. Supreme Court

In July 2008, the 9th circuit ruled that Arizona’s independent petition deadline of early June is unconstitutional, at least as applied to independent presidential candidates. Arizona recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision. Now, Montana’s Attorney General has notified all sides to the Arizona case that Montana intends to file an amicus curiae brief on the side of the Arizona law.

Montana itself moved its independent candidate deadline (for office other than president) from June to March in 2007, and is currently defending that March deadline in U.S. District Court.


Comments

Montana Wants to Help Arizona Defend Early Petition Deadline in U.S. Supreme Court — 9 Comments

  1. I wonder how the citizens of Montana would feel knowing that their tax dollars are going to help Arizona. And why stop there? Maybe the citizens of Montana should start paying for roads, parks, schools, etc in Arizona!

  2. #1 Presumably the citizens of Montana are cool with their legislature changing the filing deadline from June to March, and would want Montana election laws to be upheld, rather than overturned by a federal court that was only cognizant of the specific issues in Arizona.

  3. The reason for the change in Montana was to allow all candidates to file at the same time in March. Our tax dollars should not go to Arizona. Some people may wait until the primary election to decide that they should run. Steve Kelly decided he would run after Liberal Bob Kelleher won the Republican Senate nomination in June. This was a two way race and Max won easily. We just need to change the president filing so the SOS can’t make his own deadline to keep his party happy.

  4. Re #4 The people of Montana elected its legislature. Therefore, it can be presumed that the people of Montana supported the changes in the election laws, and want their laws to be defended against meddling by federal courts.

    Any money spent by the Montana AG in their amicus curiae brief is being spent to defend a Montana law that is similar to the Arizona law. Most likely, a large amount of the money spent in preparing the brief will be spent in Montana.

  5. Jim, I think most citizens do not know what the legislature does in some of these election laws. In Montana you used to be able to run for two different offices at the same time, and you could run in two different primaries for the same office. The main two parties changed those laws. It’s the people in power changing things for their benefit and not for the benefit of the people of Montana.

  6. What genius lawyer is filing an amicus brief bringing up —

    SEPARATE IS ***NOT*** EQUAL.

    Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954 — that started the *modern* civil rights era.

    I.E. EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the same office in the same area.

    New Age SOOOOO difficult to understand.

  7. I’m sure that most citizens have no clue about what the legislature does, or even what it is. But nonetheless, the legal presumption is that the people chose the legislature to pass the laws that they did, and that the AG should defend the action of the legislature against meddling by federal courts.

    I’d like a Constitution that limited each member to introducing one bill per session. I suspect that few members would use their one chance to pass a bill on some of the things that they do. Currently, they can just come up with dozens of ideas, and have the staff draft a bill.

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