RFK Jr. plans to file lawsuit against Nevada over ballot access

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to file a lawsuit in opposition to the Nevada Secretary of State’s workplace, CBS Information has realized, almost two months after studying that his marketing campaign would probably must restart signature gathering within the Silver State.

In early March, the marketing campaign introduced that it had collected greater than 15,000 signatures in Nevada, however earlier than Kennedy had named a operating mate, which is required by state legislation to begin the petition course of for impartial candidates. 

In late March, the Nevada Secretary of State’s Workplace acknowledged, nevertheless, {that a} staffer wrongly knowledgeable the marketing campaign that it didn’t want to call a vice-presidential choose on the petition. Nonetheless, in an announcement Thursday supplied to CBS Information, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar stated his workplace is ready to face Kennedy in court docket, on condition that his marketing campaign obtained steering with the statutes made clear.

“Nevada has a wealthy historical past of impartial and third get together candidates for workplace. Every of these candidates managed to realize poll entry by following the legislation. We stay up for seeing Mr. Kennedy’s staff in court docket,” Aguilar stated.

With over a month left to assemble new signatures, the marketing campaign will probably run out of time to begin over in Nevada if it pursues litigation in court docket and loses the case.

In a Might 23 settlement letter written by Paul Rossi, the Kennedy marketing campaign’s lead poll entry lawyer, he warned the secretary of state’s workplace that Kennedy was ready to file a lawsuit Friday until the workplace agrees to settle with the marketing campaign. Rossi supplied to drop any costs and keep away from litigation prices in change for the workplace validating the signatures. 

Rossi proposed circulating Nicole Shanahan’s title in newspapers across the state to appropriate the omission of RFK Jr.’s operating mate on the petition. Moreover, anybody who signed Kennedy’s petition could withdraw their help in the event that they select to, Rossi supplied.

“We’re pleased to debate and iron out any particulars to achieve a suitable settlement of this distinctive factual circumstance,” Rossi wrote. 

The same case occurred in 2008, when the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority filed a petition with the secretary of state’s workplace to place an schooling and infrastructure funding initiative on the poll. The secretary of state’s workplace decided that the petition was invalid as a result of the shape violated state pointers, and that call was later upheld by the Nevada Supreme Courtroom.

Kennedy was not the one impartial candidate to study he must begin over in Nevada. Unbiased presidential candidate Cornel West submitted a brand new petition to the secretary of state’s workplace in April, the identical day he revealed his operating mate, Melina Abdullah, a California-based pan-African research professor, and chief of the California chapter of Black Lives Matter, in accordance with the secretary of state’s workplace.

“In early March, the Secretary of State’s workplace despatched steering to all impartial campaigns for president that had filed petitions for poll entry,” Aguilar stated in his assertion to CBS Information. “This steering highlighted the statutory necessities essential for petitions to be legitimate. The steering was despatched effectively prematurely of the deadline to submit signatures, which nonetheless has not handed. Whereas some campaigns took the chance to refile petitions with our workplace, others didn’t.” 

Previous to the settlement letter, the secretary of state’s workplace instructed CBS Information it had not heard from the marketing campaign since March, when it first despatched a memo for poll entry steering. 

This additionally comes at some point after Kennedy’s marketing campaign filed a criticism with the Federal Election Fee that accuses CNN, President Biden, former President Donald Trump and their campaigns of violating federal election legislation for not inviting him to participate within the June 27 presidential debate.