IN THE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF IOWA

IOWA LIBERTARIAN PARTY and
JAKE PORTER,
Plaintiffs,

VS.

Civil Action No. _________________

PAUL D. PATE, Secretary of State
and State Commissioner of Elections,
Defendant.

COMPLAINT

For their claims for relief, plaintiffs state as follows:
JURISDICTION
1. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331
and 1343.
PARTIES
2. The Iowa Libertarian Party is an unincorporated, Des Moines-based “nonparty political
organization” under Iowa Code Chapter 44 that has sponsored, sponsors, and intends to continue to
sponsor candidates in Iowa elections who support the Party’s libertarian ideals.
3. Plaintiff Jake Porter is a citizen and resident of Council Bluffs, Pottawatomie County,
Iowa, and intends to run in the 2020 election as the Libertarian Party candidate for United States

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 Senator; he has previously run as a Libertarian candidate for Iowa Secretary of State and Governor.
4. Paul D. Pate is the Secretary of State for the State of Iowa and, as such and pursuant to
Iowa Code § 47.1, is the Iowa State Commissioner of Elections and is thereby charged with
oversight of Iowa’s elections and enforcement of the State’s election laws; he is sued in his official
capacities.
FACTS
5. A “political party” is defined by Iowa law as a party whose candidate for president or
governor, as the case may be, received at least two percent of the total vote cast for that office in the
last general election. Iowa Code § 43.2.1.b.
6. A political party nominates its candidates at the primary election, which is held on the first
Tuesday after the first Monday in each even-numbered year; that is, between June 2 and 8 of an
election year. Iowa Code § 43.7.
7. A political organization that did not poll at least two percent of the presidential or
gubernatorial votes in the most recent general election is classified by Iowa as a “nonparty political
organization.” Iowa Code Chapter 44.
8. To run candidates as a nonparty political organization, plaintiff Libertarian Party may
nominate one candidate for each office through a convention or caucus that has the participation of
at least two hundred fifty voters and at least one eligible elector from each of at least twenty-five
counties in the State. Iowa Code Ann. § 44.1.
9. During its 2019 session, the Iowa Legislature amended Iowa Code § 44.4 to require that
nonparty political organizations’ nominations made pursuant to Iowa Code § 44.1 must be filed with
the defendant no “later than 5:00 P.M. on the eighty-first day before the first Tuesday after the first
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 Monday in June in each even-numbered year;” that is, the filing deadline for nonparty political
organizations falls between March 14th and 20th preceding a primary election.
10. The filing deadline for the Iowa Libertarian Party for the 2020 general election will be
March 14, 2020, while the general election will not be until November 3, 2020.
11. The filing deadline for nominations from nonparty political organizations in Iowa Code
§ 44.4 had previously been the seventy-third day before the date of the general election to be held
in November; that is, the third or fourth week in August.
12.

A filing deadline in mid-March imposes heavy burdens on nonparty political

organizations including, but not limited to, the following:
– It handicaps minor parties from reacting to later breaking changes in the political
landscape, including later emerging major party candidacies;
– It hampers the recruitment of convention and caucus participants because of the early
uncertainties that arise in any campaign season;
– That early in a campaign, volunteers are more difficult to recruit and retain, media coverage
and campaign contributions are more difficult to secure, and voters are less interested in the
elections;
– The Party will be locked into the candidates they nominate in March regardless of
subsequent developments and disclosures concerning the major party candidates and their
races, the Party’s own candidates, other minor party and independent candidates, or any other
state and national developments that could affect campaigns.
13. Members of the plaintiff Iowa Libertarian Party vote and associate to promote
Libertarian ideals and candidates, as do supporters of plaintiff Porter, and their efforts to advance
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 their causes are substantially burdened by the mid-March filing deadline in Iowa Code § 44.4.
14. No legitimate state interest justifies the burdens placed on the plaintiffs, on the Iowa
Libertarian Party members and supporters of plaintiff Porter, and on other minor political parties and
their candidates by Iowa’s mid-March filing deadline.
15. Under Iowa law, political parties – as opposed to noparty political organizations – may
fill vacancies on their tickets up to “5:00 p.m. on the sixty-ninth day before the date of the general
election” or, that is, in late August of an election year. Iowa Code § 43.78.
16. No legitimate state interest justifies the differential and adverse treatment accorded
nonparty political organizations in Iowa Code § 44.4 as compared to the treatment provided political
parties in Iowa Code § 43.78.
CLAIMS FOR RELIEF
17. Iowa’s mid-March deadline set forth in Iowa Code § 44.4 for the nomination of nonparty
political organizations’ candidates for the November general election violates plaintiffs’ rights
protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and by 42
U.S.C. § 1983.
18. Iowa’s mid-March deadline set forth in Iowa Code § 44.4 for the nomination of nonparty
political organizations’ candidates for the November general election violates fundamental voting
and associational rights of Iowa Libertarian Party members and of the supporters of plaintiff Porter,
rights that are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution
and by 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
19. Iowa’s requirement that plaintiff Iowa Libertarian Party file its final nominations in midMarch of an election year while allowing “political parties” to file their nominations as late as sixty
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 -nine days before the November general elections violates the plaintiffs’ right to equal protection of
the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and by 42
U.S.C. § 1983.

RELIEF REQUESTED
Plaintiffs therefore request the following relief:
A. A declaratory judgment holding that Iowa Code § 44.4 violates the plaintiffs’ rights
protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and by 42
U.S.C. § 1983;
B. A declaratory judgment holding that Iowa Code § 44.4 violates the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by suppressing associational
and voting rights of the members of the Iowa Libertarian Party and of the supporters of plaintiff Jake
Porter;
C. A declaratory judgment that Iowa’s discriminatory treatment of nonparty political
organizations by Iowa Code § 44.4 requiring nominations to be filed in mid-March while permitting
political parties to file nominations in late August of an election year violates the rights of the
plaintiffs and the members of the Iowa Libertarian Party to equal protection of the law as guaranteed
by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and by 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
D. An injunction against the defendant forbidding him from enforcing the March deadline
set forth in Iowa Code § 44.4 against the plaintiffs;
E. An order awarding plaintiffs their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs;
F. All other relief to which the Court shall deem the plaintiffs to be entitled.
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 /s/ Robert M. Bastress, Jr.
Robert M. Bastress, Jr.
West Virginia Bar ID # 263
P.O. Box 1295
Morgantown, W.Va. 26507-1295
(304) 293-5308
rmbastress@gmail.com

/s/ Julia A. Ofenbakh
Julia A. Ofenbakh
Iowa Defenders, PLLC
2183 86th St., Suite C
Clive, Iowa 50325
515-868-0088
julia@iowadefenders.com
Counsel for Plaintiffs

CERTIFICATE
I, Robert M. Bastress, Jr., certify that I have provided a notice of constitutional question to
the Attorney General of Iowa, ___________________, as required by Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 5.1

/s/ Robert M. Bastress, Jr.

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