Candidate Joseph Vodvarka appealed a Commonwealth Court deicision which set aside his nomination petition as Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in a primary election held in April 2016. The Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court's decision and ordered Vodvarka be placed on the ballot. At issue was a challenge to the register of voters, or the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors or "SURE." The Supreme Court held that the signature of a registered voter whose name appeared in the SURE registry could not be stricken from a nominating petition solely because the address listed on the nominating petition was different from the address at which the signer was currently registered to vote. View "In Re: Nom. of Joseph Vodvarka" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a political figure in the Libertarian Party of Virginia, filed suit challenging Virginia's three-tiered ballot ordering law, Virginia Code 24.2-613. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff principally argued on appeal that Virginia's three-tiered ballot ordering law advantages candidates from what he calls “major parties” and disadvantages candidates like him that hail from what he calls “minor parties.” The court noted that the text and history of the Constitution, well established Supreme Court precedent, and the structural principles inherent in our federal system counsel respect for the Virginia General Assembly’s power to administer elections in Virginia. With state legislatures’ longstanding authority to regulate elections in mind, the court employed the Supreme Court’s Anderson/Burdick decisional framework to distinguish those laws whose burdens are uniquely unconstitutional from the majority of laws whose validity is unquestioned. The court concluded that the three-tiered ballot ordering law imposes little burden on plaintiff’s constitutional rights, and Virginia articulates several important interests supporting the law. The ballot ordering law imposes only the most modest burdens on plaintiff's rights where the law is facially neutral and nondiscriminatory. Furthermore, the law is supported by important regulatory interests where the law may assist the voting process by reducing voter confusion and preserving party-order, as well as reduce multi-party factionalism and promote political stability. Therefore, the court concluded that it has no basis for finding the state statute unconstitutional and affirmed the judgment. View "Sarvis v. Alcorn" on Justia Law

The Legislature specified that any amendments to a measure submitted for comment must be “reasonably germane to the theme, purpose, or subject of the initiative measure as originally proposed.” At issue is the scope of Elections Code provisions enacted in 2014, which created a new process by which a proposed initiative measure is submitted for public comment. In this case, proponents decided to amend their measure, deleting some provisions and adding others that were supported by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. Challengers sought a writ of mandate requiring the Attorney General to reject the amendments. The trial court granted the writ. The proponents, joined by the Governor, sought emergency relief in this court. The court granted the requested relief and directed the trial court to vacate its judgment. The court concluded that the legislative history and statutory language demonstrate that the Legislature intended the comment period to facilitate feedback, not to create a broad public forum. Nor did the Legislature preclude substantive amendments. The court concluded that, while the new process imposes time constraints on various governmental functions, the constraints are similar to those that existed under the former statutory scheme. In particular, the Legislature continued existing law relating to fiscal analyses of the impacts of proposed measures. View "Brown v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Aspiring political parties and their members challenged, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the constitutionality of two provisions of Pennsylvania’s election code: 25 Pa. Stat. 2911(b) and 2937. The provisions, respectively, regulate the number of signatures required to attain a position on the general election ballot and govern the process by which private individuals can sue in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to challenge the validity of a candidate’s nomination paper or petition. At the summary judgment stage, the district court held that, acting in combination, the two provisions, as applied, violated plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. On appeal, the Commonwealth argued that neither named state official has a sufficient connection to the challenged provisions to be a proper defendant and that the court’s order was “incoherent on its face” The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting the “technical issues” raised by the Commonwealth. Both the Secretary of the Commonwealth and its Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Commissions, Elections, and Legislation had a sufficient connection to the enforcement of the challenged provisions as required under Ex Parte Young. View "Constitution Party of Pa. v. Cortes" on Justia Law

The Attorney General prepared and filed a modified ballot title following remand from the Supreme Court. In its second trip to the Oregon Supreme Court, two petitioners challenged the modified title. IP 62 applies to public employees (employees) and public employee labor organizations (unions). If adopted by the voters, IP 62 would have amended several provisions of the Oregon Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act. Petitioners Neel and Forest set out two main objections to the modified caption: (1) they claimed that the phrase “limits public employee union members’ obligations” was vague and overbroad and was likely to mislead and confuse voters; (2) the phrase “employees might benefit without sharing bargaining costs" petitioners contended that, as used to describe IP 62, that phrase was “underinclusive, inaccurate, misleading, politically loaded,” and failed to reasonably identify the actual major effect of the proposed initiative measure. The Supreme Court found certain of the objections to be well taken, and referred the modified ballot title to the Attorney General for additional modification. View "Conroy v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Under the prior version of R.C. 3519.01(A), if the attorney general certified the summary of a proposal to change the law or amend the constitution as fair and truthful, that proposal would be filed with the secretary of state and supporters could begin circulating petitions. The section now provides that a petition is transferred to the Ballot Board, not to the secretary of state, for review after certification, and that “[o]nly one proposal of law or constitutional amendment to be proposed by initiative petition shall be contained in an initiative petition to enable the voters to vote on that proposal separately.” If the Board determines that the petition contains more than one proposed law or constitutional amendment, it must divide the petition into individual petitions and certify its approval to the attorney general; supporters must submit separate summaries for approval. The Board divided Ethics First’s submission into three separate proposed amendments. Ethics First brought a mandamus petition. After holding that it had jurisdiction, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the complaint. The modest imposition posed by requiring new summaries does not unduly restrict the right of initiative, The “separate petitions” requirement is not content-based. It applies to all petitions. View "Ethics First-You Decide Ohio Political Action Comm.. v. DeWine" on Justia Law

On October 27, 2015,one week before the November 3 regular biennial school board election for Mesa County Valley School District 51, three registered electors of the school district, Kent Carson, James “Gil” Tisue, and Dale Pass, filed a verified petition with the district court, challenging as wrongful the certification of one of the candidates. Carson and two other electors of Mesa County Valley School District 51 sought certiorari review of the district court’s order denying their requested relief concerning a school board election. After review, the Supreme Court found that C.R.S. section 1-1-113(1) did not permit a challenge to an election official’s certification of a candidate to the ballot, solely on the basis of the certified candidate’s qualification, once the period permitted by section 1-4-501(3), C.R.S. (2015), for challenging the qualification of the candidate directly has expired. Therefore the district court's ruling was affirmed. View "Carson v. Reiner" on Justia Law

Voters from Virginia’s Congressional District 3 challenged the Commonwealth’s 2013 congressional redistricting plan on the ground that the legislature’s redrawing of their district was unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Three members of Congress from Virginia intervened to defend the plan. The district court struck down the plan and, after remand from the Supreme Court, again held that the plan was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court dismissed a second appeal for lack of standing. A party invoking federal court jurisdiction can establish Article III standing only by showing that he has suffered an “injury in fact,” that the injury is “fairly traceable” to the challenged conduct, and that the injury is likely to be “redressed” by a favorable decision. , Representative Forbes, the Republican incumbent in District 4, has decided to run in District 2, regardless of the litigation's outcome; even if Forbes had standing when he first intervened, he does not have standing now. Representatives Wittman and Brat, the incumbents in Districts 1 and 7, respectively, have not identified any record evidence to support their allegation that the redistricting plan has harmed their prospects of reelection. The allegation of an injury, without more, is not sufficient to satisfy Article III. View "Wittman v. Personhuballah" on Justia Law

Rachel Johns sought the Democratic party’s nomination for Missouri State Representative in the District 76. She filed a declaration of candidacy with the Missouri Secretary of State, in which she stated under oath, that she “will qualify” to hold the office of state representative pursuant to the Missouri Constitution’s requirements for that office. Respondent Joshua Peters, another candidate for the Democratic party’s nomination for Missouri State Representative in the District 76, filed a petition pursuant to section 115.526, RSMo 2000, seeking to disqualify Johns as a candidate and have her name removed from any official election ballot. Peters argued that Johns could not meet the two-year durational voter registration requirement of article III, section 4 of the Missouri Constitution because she did not register to vote until February 4, 2015, which was less than two years before the general election date of November 8, 2016. Although Johns agreed that she did not meet the two-year voter registration requirement, she argued that such requirement is constitutionally invalid as applied to her. The circuit court determined that the voter registration requirement did not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments. Johns appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed: "The State’s justification for the durational voter registration requirement’s burden on voting rights is the same as the justification it offers for the burden on Johns herself. The State’s interests in regulating the fairness of its elections and ensuring that candidates for state representative demonstrate sufficient seriousness about the electoral systems and social and civic engagement are legitimate. The two-year durational voter registration requirement is rationally related to those interests and a reasonable method of furthering them. Accordingly, article III, section 4 does not violate the First Amendment voting rights of the voters of District 76." View "Peters v. Johns" on Justia Law

Relators, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association and others, filed this original petition challenging the petition signatures submitted in support of the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act (Act). The committee responsible for the Act petition (committee) filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, asserting that a challenge to the specific part-petitions at issue did not fall within the scope of the Court’s original jurisdiction. The Supreme Court rejected the committee’s jurisdictional arguments and denied the committee’s alternative arguments for partial judgment on the pleadings, holding (1) the Court has original jurisdiction over this petition challenge pursuant to Ohio Const. art. II, 1g; and (2) the committee’s alternative arguments were unavailing. View "Ohio Manufacturers' Ass’n v. Ohioans for Drug Price Relief Act" on Justia Law