The following is printed from Nick Ruiz’s website
(Nick is a fellow Green Running for Congress in Florida)
Dear Mr. Browning,
Many thanks for your time in reading this letter.
I am the Green Party candidate for Congress in Florida District 24. Perhaps the Office of the Secretary and the Florida Department of State are unaware that congressional campaigns in Florida are faced with Florida’s acutely restrictive ballot access fee/petition restrictions. Upon researching the procedural and constitutional validity of such fee and petition restrictions, our campaign has come to realize, along with many other campaigns and citizens, that the ballot access restrictions in Florida are unconstitutional.
For example, in Illinois the ballot access restriction is simply that the candidate collect 0.5% of the party vote in the last election, which amounts to 19 to 47 petition signatures, depending upon the district - a reasonable number and request. There is no fee.
In another example, for Tennessee, the ballot access restriction is simply that the candidate provide 25 petition signatures from the district. Again, there is no fee.
In a final example, for Utah, there is a filing fee - it is $435. There is no petition requirement.
In stark contrast, in Florida, the petition requirement is 1% of the district’s entire vote population, which amounts to 3,413 to 6,081 petition signatures, depending upon the district.
Florida’s ballot access petition restriction is approximately 200 times the number of petitions required in the example of Tennessee and Illinois, and an entirely unreasonable number and request.
Alternatively, in Florida, a candidate may pay a fee of 6% of the U.S. Representative’s salary in order to be placed on the ballot. The fee amounts to $10,440 in 2010.
Florida’s ballot access fee restriction is approximately 24 times the amount required in the example of Utah.
Given that the fee and petition ballot access restrictions in Florida are so radically outside of the general normalcy of ballot access restrictions in the United States of America, they can be neither reasonable, nor necessary.
Why does Florida restrict its citizens from candidacy in elections, and hence, why does Florida restrict voter choices at the polls - in so oppressive and Draconian a manner?
In fact, such onerous ballot access restrictions are unconstitutional. Legal scholars, and the courts, have asserted repeatedly that a voter’s rights and a candidate’s rights are implicated and interwoven as First Amendment rights, that may not be violated by any state, though states may, of course, enhance them.
The Nicholas Ruiz III for Congress campaign would like to request that in your capacity as Secretary, you consider possibilities for the waiver of such unconstitutionally burdensome ballot access restrictions in our State of Florida, so that the freedom to offer one’s candidacy, and the freedom of choice for each voter to select the candidate that they wish - are not impeded by unconstitutional restrictions of American First and Fourteenth Amendment rights from 2010 forward.
As the first step toward the accomplishment of such a waiver, we ask that the Affidavit of Undue Burden (Section 99.097(4) Florida Statutes) be utilized for such purpose of waiving the fee and petition signature requirement for all congressional candidates for whom such a ballot restriction fee, or for whom petition collection costs, exceeds their personal resources, or resources otherwise available to them for their congressional campaigns in 2010 and forward. We also ask that the deadline for submission of the affidavit be moved forward to match the deadline of the ballot access restriction fee payment, by noon of April 30, 2010.
Many thanks for your consideration. We eagerly await your decision.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
To view the post at Nick’s website use this link:
http://intertheory.org/nriii-031810.html
