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FEDERAL JUDGE REVERSED COURSE JANUARY 10:
ORDERS IMMEDIATE HALT TO PRINTING OF VIRGINIA BALLOTS --
FEDERAL JUDGE PREDICTS ALL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
Will Be on the Republican Primary Ballot in Virginia
Powell Gammill Website: Gammill For Congress Blog: Fascist Nation Date: 01-11-2012 Subject: Politics: Republican Campaigns FEDERAL JUDGE REVERSED COURSE JANUARY 10: ORDERS IMMEDIATE HALT TO PRINTING OF VIRGINIA BALLOTS -- FEDERAL JUDGE PREDICTS ALL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES The greatest weakness in Rick Perry's lawsuit had been what remedy or solution Rick Perry would ask the U.S. District Court to provide. Rick Perry's lawsuit argues that
it is unconstitutional for Virginia's General Assembly to require ballot
petition collectors to be Virginia residents (either registered voters
in Virginia or eligible to register to vote in Virginia). This is strongly based upon a surprisingly similar United States Supreme Court precedent Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundtion,
525 U.S. 182 (1999). The U.S. Supreme Court has already decided that
it is unconstitutional -- i.e., too great a burden on political
expression, activiity, and "speech" -- to limit those who can gather the
petitions to only registered voters in a State. http://supreme.justia.com/us/525/182/case.html The primary reason the circulator
residency requirement is unconstitutional is that States have not shown
any reasonable justification for the limitation. Because the
limitation does not appear to serve any real purpose, its burden on
political expression is too great. The restriction burdening a
fundamental Constitutional right is not narrowly tailored to serve a
legitimate state interest. But Rick Perry's lawsuit suffered from a
huge problem: If Judge Gibney agreed with Perry's argument, what could
be done at this late date to cure the problem? If RIck Perry were allowed the right to
bring in out-of-state petition circulators, he would still have to
collect another 4,000 valid signatures, plus a margin of error, in a
very short window of time. That seemed entirely impractical. Enter the excellent Gingrich / Santorum / Huntsman legal brief, which solved this problem. The Gingrich / Santorum / Huntsman legal
brief argues that because the petition circulator residency requirement
is unconstitutional, the entire ballot petition scheme under Va. Code 24.2-545(B) must be thrown out in its entirety. In effect, Gingrich, Santorum, and
Huntsman argue that the petition circulator residency requirement is not
"severable" from the rest of Va. Code 24.2-545(B). It's all or
nothing. The entire statutory plan falls, if part of it falls. Thus, Gingrich, Santorum, and Huntsman
ask for the United States District Court to strike the entire statutory
scheme for ballot petitions, and forcefully argue that the outcome of
this is that all Republican presidential candidates must appear on the
March 6, 2012, Republican primary ballot. Rather than looking at the petition
gatherer residency requirement in isolation, Judge Gibney was now
persuaded to consider the entirety of Va. Code 24.2-545(B) invalid as a
unit. However, one requirement for an
injunction is the likelihood of success on the merits. That is, a judge
will only issue an injunction if it appears likely that the party
requesting an injunction has a very strong case for winning at the final
hearing. As a result, Judge Gibney issued the
extraordinary comment quoted above (which is necessary and legal valid
for the balancing test for issuing an injunction): The purpose of making this comment was to explain why an injunction was appropriate for him to order at this time. ### |