Opponents Join Perry in Fighting Virginia GOP Primary Rules

Perry

Newt Gingrich and fellow GOP Presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman have joined a lawsuit filed last week by Texas Gov. Rick Perry against Virginia’s Board of Elections.  They’re miffed that only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will be on the March 6th ballot. And Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, says he will draft emergency legislation that would loosen the ballot restrictions.

Richmond U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. on Thursday declined to issue an injunction ordering that Perry be listed on the ballot, saying that regardless of Perry’s arguments, he failed to gather the 10,000 signatures required by law. In his suit, Perry contends that the requirement that all petition circulators be either “eligible or registered qualified voters” violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee the rights of free speech and association.

But no matter what the law says, Gingrich and the other candidates say they deserve a place on the ballot.

“For the voters in Virginia to be told that … their options are limited to two people who between them are clearly a minority of the Republican voters is probably unacceptable,” Gingrich said, according to Reuters.

“I think you need to make it relatively easy to get on the ballot. That’s my biggest problem with Virginia right now, is that they have made it just incredibly hard for anyone to get on the ballot,” Perry said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday.

“You know most other states its about making it relatively simple, with some you know good standards in place…Again, that’s that state’s decision. And I may not agree with how they do it, but I’m a big tenth amendment fan and believe that the states have the sovereign right to make the decision for themselves.”

Cuccinelli may intervene

Cuccinelli, who as attorney general would not normally be expected to write legislation, told Fox News he is planning to file emergency legislation that would loosen the rules for getting on the ballot.

“Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient,” Cuccinelli said in a statement to Fox.

A hearing on Perry’s suit has been set for Jan. 13.

In the suit, Perry cites a 1999 Supreme Court ruling which held that a Colorado law requiring all petition circulators to be registered Colorado voters violated the First Amendment.  The Court held that the restriction imposed “severe burdens” on core political speech and that the state’s interests were not sufficient to justify the burdens.

Applying that decision, “numerous courts have ruled that state- or district-residence requirements violate the First Amendment,” the suit argues.

The suit names Charles Judd, Kimberly Bowers and Don Palmer, members of the Virginia State Board of Elections and Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.  It was filed by Richmond attorney Hugh M. Fain III and by the Houston law firm Beirne, Maynard & Parsons.