2nd Circuit Cancels Special GOP Primary In NY 3rd Congressional District

After months of back and forth, the Second Circuit overturned a district court decision that had scheduled a special Republican primary on October 6 in the race for New York's 3rd congressional seat:

U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin set the Oct. 6 primary in an Aug. 17 ruling and ordered the state Board of Elections to apply for an exemption to a federal law setting deadlines for mailing absentee ballots to overseas military voters. 

Martins appealed to the Second Circuit after Scullin later rejected his request to delay the general election to Dec. 6, arguing only a month between the GOP primary and Nov. 8 general would disenfranchise military voters and disadvantage his campaign. 

Pidot went to federal court after the state Supreme Court ruled June 24 that there was not enough time to put him on the ballot for the original June 28 primary. Martins supporters knocked him off the ballot in May, but the court later found he had enough petition signatures from Republican voters to qualify as a candidate. 

The Second Circuit's decision relied, in part, on the roles of federal and state courts in election matters:

Wednesday’s ruling falls in line with nine other cases in which federal courts denied candidates’ request to get on the ballot after losing in state court, according to a Sept. 1 case study by the Federal Judicial Center. . . . In court filings, the state Board of Elections . . . asked the Second Circuit to cancel the primary because federal courts have no jurisdiction over election matters.

“The Second Circuit has long recognized that state forums are the appropriate place to litigate disputes about the mechanics of election administration,” lawyers for the board wrote in a court filing. 

Last Wednesday's ruling has important implications for ballot access, election administration, and the state-federal balance in control of elections. 

The RNLA's Ballot Access Initiative Featured in the National Journal

The National Journal reported yesterday on the RNLA’s efforts to ensure that every Republican Candidate has an opportunity to get on the ballot in each of the 50 states and 6 American territories.  The Ballot Access Initiative, spearheaded by Co-Chairs Stefan Passantino and Peter Schalestock with help from their team of RNLA volunteers, have come up with the most sweeping ballot-access project in GOP history.

Getting on the ballot as a candidate seems like a simple task, however, each jurisdiction has different rules, which can cost a campaign a lot of money.  According to the article:

How much money?  Ac­cord­ing to Stefan Passantino, a Wash­ing­ton, D.C.-based at­tor­ney who served as co­chair­man of the Bal­lot Ac­cess Ini­ti­at­ive, the num­ber reaches eas­ily in­to the six fig­ures.

It typ­ic­ally costs “tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in dir­ect re­search costs to the cam­paign,” Passantino said. “When you com­bine that with the ad­di­tion­al costs in­curred in hav­ing to hire pro­fes­sion­al sig­na­ture-gather­ers be­cause of an in­ab­il­ity to fully al­loc­ate vo­lun­teer re­sources at the out­set, the amount un­doubtedly ex­tends to six fig­ures.”

RNLA President Larry Levy, who served as gen­er­al coun­sel to Rudy Gi­uliani’s 2008 White House bid as well as RNLA Chairman Randy Evans, a senior advisor for Newt Gingrich’s 2012 Presidential Campaign recognized the difficulties presented to counsels for a candidate to get access to the ballot in all of the states.

“We both had ex­per­i­ence in rep­res­ent­ing pres­id­en­tial can­did­ates and re­cog­nized how dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing it is to get on the bal­lot in every jur­is­dic­tion,” Levy said of him­self and Evans.

Evans, re­call­ing his ex­per­i­ence with the Gin­grich cam­paign, ad­ded: “I know how pain­ful it was in Vir­gin­ia when we couldn’t muster enough sig­na­tures to get on the bal­lot. It’s im­port­ant for can­did­ates to know what the rules are.”

The RNLA launched the Ballot Access Initiative back in January of 2015 after the midterm elections.  

In the past, one of the challenging hurdles for even the strongest candidates has been the legal technicalities of actually getting their name on the ballot in all 50 states and 6 territories. In fact, during the last cycle there was one state where only two candidates' names were on the ballot even though more viable candidates remained in the race.

The RNLA thanks all who were involved over the past nine months to help accompany the goals that the Ballot Access Project set out to accomplish. 

Get Your Candidate on the Ballot in Every State

The RNLA Presidential Ballot Access Initiative is a collaborative initiative that levels the playing field for all presidential candidates. This project is spearheaded by co-chairs Stefan Passantino and Peter Schalestock who together with the RNLA teamed up with volunteer lawyers from across the country to provide resources and information to presidential candidates interested in getting their names on the ballot during the Republican nomination process. 

If you are an RNLA member we invite you to visit our website HERE to see how your candidate can get on the ballot in each state. If you are not a member we invite you to join the RNLA to gain access to special resources such as this. Additional states will be added every Friday until the list is complete. This week the following states and territories are available:


Alabama

Arkansas

Indiana

Louisiana

Michigan

Missouri

Mississippi

North Carolina

New Hampshire

Indiana

Ohio

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Virginia 

We would like to send a special thanks to Stefan, Peter, and all the members who volunteers who worked so hard on this project! We congratulate Stefan on his firm's new merger with Dentons US, LLP. If you have any substantive questions on this project, please feel free to contact Stefan Passantino, finding his contact at http://www.dentons.com/en/stefan-passantino.

If you have any questions regarding the logistics or member, please contact RNLA’s Executive Director Michael Thielen at thielen@republicanlawyer.net or Brittany Walker at walker@republicanlawyer.net.

RNLA Announces Ballot Access Initiative

With 30-40 candidates considering a possible GOP Presidential bid and 10-20 likely candidates to make the field, the RNLA has committed to a project to level the playing field for all of them. In the past, one of the challenging hurdles for even the strongest candidates has been the legal technicalities of actually getting their name on the ballot in all 50 states and 6 territories. . . . RNLA Chairman Randy Evans and RNLA President Larry Levy have appointed Stefan Passantino and Peter Schalestock as co-chairs of the GOP Presidential Ballot Access Initiative. They will chair this committee designed to ‘level the playing field’ by providing as a resource information for potential GOP Presidential candidates interested in getting their names on the ballot during the nomination process.

More details here.