In re Deb Shafto, Herb Gonzales, Jr., Edward Lindsay, Art Browning, Christine Morshedi, and the Green Party of Texas, No. 10-0487 (docket)

Last week, a district court ruled in favor of the Texas Democratic Party in a challenge to the Green Party’s attempt to get its nominees on the fall statewide ballot. The clock is running; Friday is the deadline to certify candidate names for the ballot.

The mandamus petition is not yet available in electronic form online. But the docket sheet indicates that the Court has already requested a response from the Texas Democratic Party by tomorrow at 3:00 pm.

The Green Party is represented, among others, by former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steven W. Smith (wikipedia), who served from 2002-2004 and also ran for the Court in 1998, 2004, and 2006.

Some more background on the ballot dispute is in this Wall Street Journal link (get it while it’s still there) or this story printed in the Statesman. The core issue seems to be whether corporate funding that supported signature-gathering efforts was permitted under Texas law.