Court Opinion

ID: 9544924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:03:32.363571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:47.583279
License: Public Domain

CONNOR, Justice,
with whom BURKE, Chief Justice, joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Selection of nominees for party petition. The nominees of political parties by party petition may be selected for statewide offices by the party central committee or in any other manner prescribed by the party bylaws, and the petition for statewide offices shall be signed by the chairman of the central committee or in his absence by any two members of the committee.... The petition may be delivered in person, by mail or by telegraph.
*7In my view the three percent requirement for nomination by petition is valid. It is not an insuperable burden for a serious candidate to gather 4,880 or more signatures on a nominating petition.
Requirements for a percentage of signatures as large or larger have been upheld by other courts. See, e.g., Jeness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974); Jackson v. Ogilvie, 325 F.Supp. 864 (N.D.Ill.1971), affirmed 403 U.S. 925 (1971).
In my view, the determination of nominating petition requirements is a matter to be decided in the first instance by the legislature. It is only if we find such requirements to be unreasonable that we should strike down the quantum arrived at by the legislature. It seems entirely reasonable that the legislature should want to make all petition signature requirements for statewide office, which were previously quite different, a uniform three percent. I am unpersuaded that this requirement amounts to an invidious discrimination which requires our intervention.
Therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the superior court.