Perry challenges Virginia ballot access law

The Hill:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is filing a federal court challenge to Virginia's ballot access rules on Tuesday in response to his failure to qualify for the state's Republican presidential primary vote. 
The legal action is in response to Perry not collecting the minimum 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot of the March 6th Republican primary.
 "Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multi-candidate election," Perry campaign communications director Ray Sullivan said in a statement. "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."  
The suit was filed by Perry's campaign in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia according to the campaign. It challenges the "constitutional validity of the Virginia statute which regulates access to the ballot by primary candidates."   
All but two members of the GOP presidential field — Mitt Romney and Ron Paul — were unable to fulfill Virginia's requirements and get on the ballot. In response, a number of candidates criticized the state's rules as too stringent. 
Candidates were required to submit 10,000 signatures by Thursday at 5 p.m. to qualify for Virginia’s “Super Tuesday” primary on March 6. 
Perry claims that the state's laws in this situation violate his freedom of speech.  
"Virginia's requirement for petition circulators to be either eligible or registered qualified voters in the state violates Plaintiff's freedoms of speech and association by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution," the challenge reads.
...
I think he has a pretty good claim.  It is somewhat ironic that Gov. Perry would have to rely on a federal court to get on the ballot, but the Virginia statue as currently interpreted  is ridiculously restrictive and gives an advantage to candidates who have been in the race for years.  It does not make much sense that the candidate leading in the polls in the state (Gingrich) cannot even get on the ballot.

The other excluded candidates should consider joining with him in challenging the Virginia action.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more