The California Independent Voters Network held a press conference on May 26, to publicize the unfair ballot access requirements that California has for independent candidates. See here. The press conference was approximately 26 minutes long, and can be viewed. There are 3 segments of the video. After the first segment, the second starts automatically.

The press conference said CAIVN will seek to persuade the legislature to ease the number of signatures, and that CAIVN will also endeavor to get a lawsuit filed.

Assemblymember Juan Arambula, California’s only independent legislator, opened the press conference. Neither Arambula, nor any other speaker, mentioned the California restriction that says no one may be an independent candidate if that person was registered as a member of a qualified party during the preceding 13 months. All the speakers criticized the large number of signatures. California requires a number of signatures equal to 1% of the registered voters from two years ago for statewide independent candidates, and 3% for district independent candidates.

Ballot Access News applauds CAIVN for this press conference and for thinking about a lawsuit. The California independent candidate procedures were upheld in U.S. District Court in Cross v Eu, 430 F Supp 1036 (1977). They were upheld again in unreported decisions in the state court of appeals in 1992, and in U.S. District Court in 1993. All three lawsuits were filed by Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, a determined pro se litigant.

One of the speakers seemed to say that minor party candidates for California Governor in 2006 only received 82,933 votes. The number of votes received by the minor party candidates for Governor in November 2006 was 452,159 (the totals were: Green Party 205,995; Libertarian Party 114,329; Peace & Freedom Party 69,934; American Independent Party 61,901). It appears the speaker was referring to the number of votes received in the 2006 primary of the four minor parties.

Several speakers said that independent candidates may not begin collecting signatures to get on the ballot this year until June 7, 2010. This is factually incorrect. They were permitted to start on April 23. Independent candidates are permitted to merge two types of petition, the petition in lieu of filing fee, and the ballot access petition. Signatures collected between April 23 and June 6 on the petition in lieu of filing fee count toward the ballot access petition. It is odd that CAIVN would make this mistake, because one of the speakers is an attorney from Latham and Watkins.

The oddest characteristic of the press conference is that in December 2009, Assemblymember Juan Arambula was asked to introduce a bill to lower the number of signatures for an independent candidate. He went so far as to ask the legislative counsel to draft such a bill, but then he didn’t introduce it, and now it is too late to introduce bills. Unfortunately, he is term-limited, so he can’t run for re-election this year and therefore he can’t introduce the bill next year. But, if he helps to find a sponsor next year, that will be a valuable service.