soapbox

Disclosure kills department:
In philadelphia, a candidate has been removed from the ballot by the PA supreme court, without opinion, because of inadvertant minor omissions from a financial disclosure form. This is the nuclear option, and is completely unnecessary as to having a workable disclosure system. My guess is that the guy who lost failed to raise or argue PA's free and equal constitutional provision, which should (but might not)prevent this sort of abuse of disclosure regimes. Another victim of the margin of litigation. Also troubling is that he was taken off the ballot within thirty days of the primary, which means, he thinks, that he can't run as an independent in the fall.
He is choosing to run in the primary as a write-in. Tactically he might have been better off to sue for the right to run as an independent, which is a slinm chance but better than that of being a write-in. By depriving philly residents from a meaningful democratic primary, disclosure has, once again, reduced the integrity of the election process.