On July 15, Butch Ware filed this reply brief in Ware v Weber, e.d., 2:26cv-1643. This is the case over the California law that gubernatorial candidates must reveal their tax returns for the last five years.
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On July 15, a U.S. District Court Magistrate heard Day v New Hampshire Secretary of State, 1:26cv-499. This is the case in which independent U.S. Senate candidate Aaron Day was barred from the ballot because he hadn’t finished updating his voter registration address on the day he filed his Declaration of Candidacy. See this news story.
The state’s rationale for keeping someone off the ballot, explained in the article, has no relevance whatsoever to candidates for U.S. House, because a candidate for U.S. House need not live in the district in which he or she is running. And of course the state’s argument has no relevance for a statewide office either. The state’s rationale only applies to state legislative races, and this case has nothing to do with state legislative races.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman will hear Collier v Nelson, w.d., 1:26cv-1574, on Tuesday, July 28, at 3 p.m. This is the case in which independent candidate Michael Collier, who is running for Lieutenant Governor of Texas, seeks injunctive relief to get on the ballot. The law says that an independent candidate can’t begin petitioning until after the run-off primary, if that particular race happens to have had a run-off primary. There was a run-off primary for Lieutenant Governor. That means Collier was given only 30 days to collect 81,030 valid signatures. No independent candidate for statewide office in Texas has ever managed to qualify in the compressed time limits.
On July 15, the New Mexico Forward Party filed a federal lawsuit against the ballot access laws. New Mexico Forward Party v Toulouse Oliver, 1:26cv-2286. Here is the Complaint. Although the Forward Party successfully qualified as a minor party earlier this year, it will have almost no nominees on the ballot this year because of a unique New Mexico law that forces the nominees of a qualified party that nominates by convention to submit their own individual petitions after they have been nominated. For statewide office this year, the nominee petitions are over 14,000 signatures, and the petitioning can’t start until March of the election year.
Bob Chew, the Forward Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Colorado, has a campaign budget of over $1,000,000. See this story.