In Haag vs California the California Peace & Freedom Party challenged the filing fees again in 1970, with John Haag of Venice, candidate for Lieutenant Governor, as the lead Plaintiff. The State Supreme Court turned PFP down.
In 1972, PFP started a new effort with Blaine vs Brown. John Blaine of Mount Washington (LA 90065). Due to a federal court injunction in Choate vs. Brown, all of the legislative and congressional candidates in the suit were able to run that year without paying the filing fees, but that left Don Paul Lubin, a PFP candidate for the non-partisan County Supervisor seat held by Pete Schabarum, as the only candidate left, so the PFP suit morphed into Lubin vs. Panish.
In the trial court, the runner-up for the Democratic Party nomination for Lieutenant Governor in 1970, Judge Robert A. Wenke, made the not so veiled racist/sexist remark that “any welfare mother who can’t afford $200 to run for Assembly is obviously a frivolous candidate.” Neither Wenke nor then-Secretary of State Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr., the defendant in Blaine vs. Brown, revealed that Wenke was a campaign contributor to Brown of $200 and an airline ticket for the 1970 election. Wenke’s decision against PFP came about a week after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Bullock vs Carter 7-0 (two justices abstaining) 405 US 134 (decided February 24, 1972) that Texas’s filing fees were unconstitutional even though you could get on the ballot as an independent without paying the fees or have your write-in votes counted without a filing fee. In California, neither of those options existed.
Don Lubin’s case went to the California Court of Appeals and the State Supreme Court to no avail. Not a single judge even wanted to hear the case. Related litigation for injunctions went before the U.S. District Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Only 9th Circuit Justice Walter R. Ely Jr. saw the case for what it was, but was outvoted 2-1. When California Deputy Attorney General Henry G. Ullerich argued that filing fees dissuaded frivolous candidates from running for office, Ely inquired of him, “tell me counselor: how do these filing fees dissuade frivolous millionaires from running for office?” Ullerich had no answer.
With the case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, we brought a new lawsuit, Jan B. Knaizansky-Tucker (and David Noble) vs Brown, which got an injunction from the 9th Circuit against the enforcement of the filing fees. Yes by the way, that was me while I was 18 years old and running for State Senator against Alan Robbins.
With a brief signed by the ACLU’s A.L. Wirin and Fred Okrand and signed and argued by Marguerite “Marge” Buckley and printed by Agency Lithograph with an Allied Printing Trades Union Label, nine justices of the Supreme Court decided 9-0 (nine to nothing) that California’s filing fees were facially unconstitutional.
So, the legislature eventually enacted a new filing fee law that allows candidates to get more signatures to get on the ballot without a filing fee or a proration of fees by the number of signatures.
Fast forward to this past week. With new election rules for the passage of Proposition 14 by the voters, the way that things worked out for me attempting to file in the 28th State Senate and Carl Iannalfo trying to run in the 17th State Senate district for special elections, instead of the old requirement for PFP candidates of 10% or 150 signatures whichever is less, with months to get them, the rules became 3,000 signatures with 3 days to get them for me and 2 days to get them for Carl.
Does that sound “reasonable and not arbitrary?”