Ballot law requiring 3 percent ruled fair

— A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Thursday brought last year on behalf of the Green Party of Arkansas that challenged the constitutionality of a state law that had barred it from being included as a political party on Arkansas ballots.

U.S. District Judge Price Marshall said that state law doesn’t unreasonably burden the rights of members of the Green Party by requiring the party’s gubernatorial or presidential candidates to garner at least 3 percent of votes to be recognized as a party in the next election.

“Arkansas ballot-access statues burden the Green Party’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, but they do so modestly, not severely,” Marshall wrote, noting the law “is reasonable, not invidiously discriminatory, and justified by Arkansas’ important regulatory interests in being a good steward of its elections.”

The ruling comes almost a year after the Arkansas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit questioning Arkansas Code Annotated 7-1-101(21)(C), which establishes the 3-percent threshold for a party to earn a place on the ballot.

In 2008, five of the party’s candidates received more than 3 percent of votes in various races across the state, but the party’s presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, didn’t campaign in Arkansas. It didn’t have a gubernatorial candidate.

The results barred the Green Party from being recognized in the next election, but allow it to petition candidates onto the ballot. The party has since won access to the 2010 ballot.

The Arkansas ACLU filed the suit on behalf of the party on Aug. 27, 2009, and the case went before Chief U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes. In September, the state filed a motion to dismiss the case, but Holmes dismissed the motion, allowing the case to proceed.

The case was reassigned to Marshall after his confirmation by the U.S. Senate in May. In June, he took “under advisement” whether to allow the case to proceed.

In the 23-page ruling issued Thursday, Marshall dismissed the Green Party’s challenges to the law, including that it discriminates against “bottomup” parties and undermines the party’s ability to choose which races to run by diverting resources to gubernatorial and presidential races to stay recognized rather than focus on “local or otherwise uncontested races.”

The party argued that the law only offers “a choice between two bad prospects” because the alternative - petition drives - are “expensive in both dollars and effort,” according to Marshall’s ruling.

But Marshall wrote that the “Constitution does not require that states make ballot access either free or easy” and the party’s history of success in petitioning onto the ballot worked against its claims. The party successfully petitioned candidates onto the ballot in 2006, 2008 and earlier this year.

“Securing 10,000 signatures from the 1,612,929 registered voters in Arkansas ... is simply not a severe burden for a political party that has achieved election results like these across Arkansas,” Marshall wrote.

The party also claimed the presidential requirement was unfair because state party officials can’t control whether the party’s candidate would campaign in the state. However, Marshall brushed aside the argument, saying the Green Party failed to show that other political parties, such as the Republican and Democratic parties, had any more control over their presidential candidates.

Marshall also dismissed the party’s claim that the state law was “ambiguous” and led Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, who is named in the suit, to misinterpret the law. In the ruling, he cited legal precedent holding that federal courts don’t have jurisdiction to “award injunctive relief against State officers on the basis of state law.”

“As Arkansas’ chief election officer, it is my duty to uphold and defend our state’s election laws,” Daniels said Friday evening in an e-mailed statement. “Judge Marshall’s ruling Thursday finds Arkansas’ legal requirements for third-party ballot access to be fair and reasonable, and I’m pleased with the court’s decision.”

Holly Dickson, staff attorney for the Arkansas ACLU, said Friday that she was “reviewing the opinion and will have to visit with our clients as to whether to appeal.”

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/31/2010

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