Arizona Green Party v. Michele Reagan

The Arizona Green Party (the “Green Party” or the “Party”), having failed to meet the deadline for recognition as an official political party on the 2014 Arizona ballot, challenges the constitutionality of Arizona’s filing deadline for new party petitions. The Green Party seeks declaratory and injunctive relief against the Arizona Secretary of State (the “Secretary”), claiming that by requiring “new” parties to file recognition petitions 180 days before the primary, Arizona unconstitutionally burdens those parties’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Ballot access litigation follows a common pattern. The scrutiny courts employ in assessing the constitutionality of a state’s election law turns on the severity the law imposes on the party or candidate’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The plaintiff bears the burden of showing the severity of the burden on-those constitutional rights; evidence that the burden is severe, de minimis, or something in between, sets the stage for the analysis by determining how compelling the state’s interest must be to justify the law in question. In this case, the Green Party chose not to present any evidence. Instead, it relied on…