Tag: Pennsylvania

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Barring Democracy in Wilkes-Barre

You may have a right to change your government … but that doesn’t mean government won’t fight back.

In Wilkes-​Barre, Pennsylvania, there was disagreement over a firehouse, whether it should be decommissioned, or not. The mayor wanted it gone; citizens wanted it kept. So citizens got active, petitioning to change the town’s home rule charter to allow voters to decide.

The city could have simply gone along with the petition, allowing a vote. That would have been the republican, democratic, and even decent thing. But instead, Mayor Tom Leighton set the town’s attorneys on the petitioners. They even sued the petitioners for $11,056 in attorney fees, for the city’s fight against their petition.

Now, the mayor had an almost-​plausible excuse. It was about the petitioning, and charges of fraud. Those charges amounted to several folks who signed the petition who later said they’d been misled.

To the petitioners, the issue of attorneys fees seemed like nothing other than an attempt to squelch their rights … and to discourage other uppity citizens.

So they fought back, and, in mid-​November, a federal jury ruled against the mayor and the town, and awarded activist Denise Carey $67,000 in her civil rights suit.

Carey’s lawyers had put the case very plainly, saying that “Mayor Leighton may be able to take away a fire station, but don’t let him take away our constitutional rights.”

The jury didn’t.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense

Pennsylvania Ballot Non-Access

Which major party works behind the scenes, illegally, to scuttle democratic processes? Well, consider Pennsylvania.

Ralph Nader has an $81,000 judgment against him, to pay off the legal costs of those who challenged his campaign in 2004. In early August, Nader petitioned the state Commonwealth Court to overturn that judgment, saying the whole thing was orchestrated — illegally — by Democratic legislators and aides in the State House. Conspiracy, he says.

He may have a case. In July, the state attorney general’s office filed criminal charges against a dozen people connected with the House Democratic caucus. Soon we’ll see how good the evidence for conspiracy is.

But don’t think it’s just Democrats who’d do nearly anything to keep a competitor off the ballot. This year, the chair of the Cumberland County Republican Party, an attorney, is suing the Libertarian Party for putting up former congressman Bob Barr as its presidential nominee. You see, when Pennsylvanians signed the petition, another name was on it. A paper candidate.

The plaintiff calls this fraud. Of all things.

Of course, since this minor party hadn’t held its national convention yet, the placeholder candidate was just a pro forma thing, to comply with an idiotic ballot access law that should be ruled unconstitutional anyway.

Yes, folks, the people who run both major parties look at election laws pretty much like the Borgias looked at pharmacology: Something to use to bump off the opposition.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.