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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hit with ballot access lawsuit in Pennsylvania amid other challenges in New York, Illinois
Clear Choice Action, a Democrat-aligned super PAC aiming to hinder third-party presidential candidates, filed a lawsuit Thursday to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Kennedy is also facing challenges from the same super PAC in New York and Illinois. In New York, the PAC claims that Kennedy’s state nominating petition falsely listed a residence in New York City’s affluent northern suburbs, while he has in fact lived in the Los Angeles area since 2014. Kennedy testified in court Tuesday to dispute the lawsuit. In Illinois, the PAC filed an objection against his nominating petition. The matter is scheduled to be reviewed by the Illinois State Board of Elections on Aug. 23.
According to the PAC’s Pennsylvania petition, Kennedy falsified his home address on state paperwork, and the group argues that several pages of petition signatures should be disregarded because of “irregularities” with signatures. The super PAC also contends that Pennsylvania law required Kennedy to submit more signatures than he gathered. Kennedy’s campaign announced in June that it had submitted more than 9,000 signatures to the swing state, nearly double the required amount.
“All candidates for President of the United States must face the same scrutiny and meet the mandatory requirements for ballot access, yet time and time again across the country Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his We The People Party have misled voters, failed to meet legal requirements, and made a mockery of the democratic process,” said Pete Kavanaugh, founder of Clear Choice Action. “The bottom line is every candidate and party must play by the same set of rules.”
Democrat-aligned groups have expressed concern about Kennedy’s impact on the election, labeling him a spoiler candidate who could hand the victory to former President Trump by siphoning battleground-state voters away from the Democratic nominee.
In 2016, third-party candidate Jill Stein garnered nearly 50,000 votes in Pennsylvania, and Hillary Clinton ended up losing the crucial state to Trump by around 44,000 votes.
Kennedy’s campaign is determined to secure ballot access in all 50 states, and RFK Jr. has consistently stated he’s staying in the race to offer voters another option in November.
“We anticipated a challenge in Pennsylvania, the most highly contested swing state of the election. That’s why we collected four times as many signatures as required to get on the ballot — so many that the Democratic Party was unable to contest the signatures and was forced to cobble together a frivolous challenge to our petitioner affidavits instead,” said Stefanie Spear, press secretary to the Kennedy campaign. “We have won every ballot access legal challenge so far and look forward to defeating the DNC in Pennsylvania and giving the people of the Keystone State the option of voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this fall.”
The office of the Pennsylvania secretary of state has not yet commented.
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
WLKY-TV
“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.
