Goldman and McSweeney make a pitch for an emergency ballot fix

Virginia’s version of the odd couple, Paul Goldman and Pat McSweeney, held a bit of a presser yesterday to call for emergency legislation that would allow more Republican candidates on the March 6th presidential primary ballot. The video is here (though the audio is sometimes a bit murky):

Interesting that both McSweeney and Goldman urge us to “get past” so many things, including the “clean hands doctrine,” because there are larger matters at stake.

So Paul, whom I genuinely like, wants us to put aside the allegations of petition fraud, or that in its own legal filing, the Perry campaign states that it submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters,” far less than the 10,000 required.

I’m sure it might be possible to forget all that and forge ahead with a legislative fix. But Del. Kirk Cox makes clear in this report that the emergency legislation McSweeney and Goldman seek just isn’t going to happen.

It was interesting, too, to see Mr. McSweeney, who is one of the prime movers behind the Jamie Radtke Senate campaign, urging an emergency change in the ballot access law. The Senate candidates need to clear the same petition signature bar the presidential campaigns did in order to appear on the June 12th primary ballot. They can’t begin gathering signatures until January, and the signatures are due March 12th. That’s not a lot of time to do the necessary legwork.

Let’s hope the ballot access circus doesn’t repeat itself.

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About the author

Norman Leahy

Norm Leahy has written about Virginia and national politics online since 2002, beginning with One Man's Trash (OMT), and continuing through Bacon's Rebellion (both the blog and the e-zine), Sic Semper Tyrannis, NBC12's Decision Virginia, Richmond.com and Tertium Quids. He is the chief blogger at "The Score" and a producer of "The Score" radio show as well as being a Washington Examiner contributor.