VIOLATION OF FIRST AMENDMENT AND MORE
A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ballot Measure 2, which changes the manner in which people vote in Alaska, has been filed in Superior Court in Anchorage, the day after the 2020 General Election was certified by the Division of Elections.
Plaintiffs include Scott Kohlhass, the Alaska Libertarian Party, Robert M. Bird, the Alaska Independence Party, and Kenneth P. Jacobus, a Republican who is also the lawyer for the group. The court filing says that the ballot measure violates Alaskans’ right to free political association, free speech, right to petition, right to due process, and other rights guaranteed to Americans by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, and by Article One, Sections 2, 5, 6, 7 and 22 of the Alaska Constitution.
The lawsuit says that Kohlhass, as a member of the Libertarian Party, wants to take part in the selection of his party’s candidate to represent him in a manner consistent with the rules of his party. Ballot Measure 2 does not allow him to do so because it destroys the party’s ability to advance a candidate under the Libertarian Party primary process.
Bird makes the same complaint on behalf of his Alaska Independence Party, and Jacobus says he objects to people other than registered Republican voters participating in choosing Republican nominees for public office.
In addition, Jacobus says that Ballot Measure 2 requires him to participate in a process that violates his rights to free political association as member of a political party.
“All political parties may select their candidates in accord with the rules of each party. This right to do so is a right guaranteed to each party and its members by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the defendants through the Fourteeth Amendment and the Constitution of the State of Alaska. This right of all political parties and their members has been confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Unitesd States,” the lawsuit claims, listing several relevant case laws that the Superior Court will be asked to review.
The lawsuit is attached below:
