Posted on 12/28/2011 6:16:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Taegan Goddard provides the obligatory zinger about a noted fan of states rights and the Tenth Amendment asking a federal judge to overrule Virginia’s preferences on ballot access. The statement from Team Perry:
“Gov. Perry greatly respects the citizens and history of the Commonwealth of Virginia and believes Virginia Republicans should have greater access to vote for one of the several candidates for President of the United States,” said Perry campaign communications director Ray Sullivan.
“Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multi-candidate election. We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the rights of candidates and voters by severely restricting access to the ballot, and we hope to have those provisions overturned or modified to provide greater ballot access to Virginia voters and the candidates seeking to earn their support.”
Here’s the complaint, which is mercifully short. One interesting bit comes in paragraph 18, which says Perry submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters.” According to the Virginia GOP, he submitted more than 11,900 signatures total, which I guess means … only slightly more than half were from qualified voters? Good lord. The other important part, which you should take two minutes to read, is Count 1 spanning paragraphs 24 through 28. He’s arguing that Virginia’s requirement that petition circulators all be residents of the state who are either registered to vote or eligible to be registered imposes a too-heavy burden on his right to engage in political speech and therefore violates the First Amendment. Is he right? Well, here’s the leading Supreme Court precedent that he cites, which is also mercifully short. Skip down to section III and take two more minutes to read that. The question for the Court in that case was ever so slightly different: Colorado law allowed only currently registered voters to be petition circulators, not people who were eligible but who hadn’t registered yet. It was slightly more restrictive than Virginia’s system, in other words — and the Court found that it did in fact violate the First Amendment. Key quote:
Colorado seeks to ensure that circulators will be amenable to the Secretary of State’s subpoena power, which in these matters does not extend beyond the State’s borders… The interest in reaching law violators, however, is served by the requirement, upheld below, that each circulator submit an affidavit setting out, among several particulars, the “address at which he or she resides, including the street name and number, the city or town, [and] the county.”… This address attestation, we note, has an immediacy, and corresponding reliability, that a voter’s registration may lack. The attestation is made at the time a petition section is submitted; a voter’s registration may lack that currency.
ACLF did not challenge Colorado’s right to require that all circulators be residents, a requirement that, the Tenth Circuit said, “more precisely achieved” the State’s subpoena service objective… Nor was any eligible-to-vote qualification in contest in this lawsuit. Colorado maintains that it is more difficult to determine who is a state resident than it is to determine who is a registered voter… The force of that argument is diminished, however, by the affidavit attesting to residence that each circulator must submit with each petition section.
In sum, assuming that a residence requirement would be upheld as a needful integrity-policing measure — a question we, like the Tenth Circuit … have no occasion to decide because the parties have not placed the matter of residence at issue — the added registration requirement is not warranted.
In other words, the Supremes specifically refused to say how demanding the state could be in setting qualifications for petition circulators. The only rule they laid down was that you can’t limit the group to registered voters; at the very least, both registered voters and people eligible to register must be permitted, which is what Virginia does. The next step beyond that is to ask whether the state can constitutionally limit circulators to just those two groups or whether they have to let any U.S. resident be a circulator so long as they’re willing to provide an address at which the secretary of state can reach them. That’s what Perry’s arguing here; obviously, he would have loved to be able to ship volunteers from Texas into Virginia and have them circulate petitions instead of wasting time recruiting local supporters to do it for him. So I ask again: Is he right? A law professor interviewed by NBC says the lawsuit “now faces long odds, both legally and politically” (partly because they should have challenged Virginia’s requirements earlier), but some federal appellate courts have sided with Perry on this. Here’s one case, from the Tenth Circuit, finding state residency requirements for petition circulators unconstitutional; two other federal appellate courts have ruled similarly. The question is whether the Fourth Circuit, which covers Virginia, will rule the same way. How lucky do you feel?
“Fed Up”
Good grief...it’s too early in the morning for this legalese. However, I’m really glad Perry is fighting this garbage!
Perry’s campaign couldn’t get its act together to get enough signatures, so now he wants some help from activist judges.
Having to go around manually hustling to get 10-15k signatures just to be on a ballot in this day and age, seems a stupid requirement that makes no rational sense to me. The least they could do is set up a provision where residents could voluntarily sign the petition online.
You snooze. You loose.
He should be firing his campaign manager, or whomever works within his campaign that has the duty of getting his ballot access instead.
Hell, ACORN, or the AFL-CIO could probably get you 10-15k signatures in Richmond, before lunchtime! lol
I will lay money down that had Mitt missed the ballot, the RNC would threaten to deny Virginia the delegates at the convention.
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Perry is doing this at behest of the Gingrich campaign, because if Perry gets on, obviously Newt will too - without the backlash of taking the legal attack route.
Me thinks that Gingrich is dangling a possible VP slot for Perry in exchange.
Another thread from yesterday that was in Breaking News at once upon a time.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2825656/posts?q=1&;page=51
Perry & “your guy” Newt?
Yep.
The “Establishment” that lives in N. VA only want “approved” candidates. Newt and Perry need not apply.
This is the first time VA has checked and disqualified sigs.
I think Perry is barking up the wrong tree.
He should just demand equal protection for all candidates - they can deny him and Gingrich access to the ballot on account of their ‘rules’. They must also deny soetoro/obama/soebarkah’s accees to the ballot unless he proves beyond doubts that he qualifies uner the highest rule of the land and the state and the election office - obama must prove beyond doubt that he is an article 2 natural born citizen eligible to be the pres.
Rules for everyone, obama included!
I say: let us all make as much noises as possible to Gingrich and Perry, to ask them to demand equal protection, namely apply all rules equally to all contestants, obama inluded. obama must be denied ballot accesss until he proves conclusively he meets the constitutional qualification to be the president - that he is a natural born citizen, one born in USA to 2 USA citizen parents!
Gingrich doesn’t have it to “dangle”.
Being Governor of Texas is ever so much better, already.
Not to mention, Perry’s philosphy doesn’t mesh with Newt’s. Anybody says it does, doesn’t know diddly.
You ain’t in Texas anymore, Rick. BTW, whatever happened to State’s Rights Perry? You would think a guy who surrounds himself with savvy insiders, a political genius team and a posse of lawyers would be ahead of the curve on Virginia’s ballot requirements.
A state does not have the right to violate the United States Constitution. I'm not saying Virginia did, but evidently the Perry team thinks so.
You keep claiming that Perry is double dipping. Are you saying that Perry is illegally receiving money? If so, please cite me the law that Perry is breaking.
He’s just making stuff up. He’s a Perry-hater.
He’s just making stuff up. He’s a Perry-hater.
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Yup and Yup.
Dontcha just *love* it ( sarc ) when someone spouts off their hatred without even reading anything or researching anything at all.... Like tostados does all the time.
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