BREAKING NEWS—Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman will not be on the Virginia GOP ballot.
Federal district court Judge John Gibney has just issued a ruling in Richmond finding that the Virginia requirement that ballot petition circulators must be state residents is a violation of the First Amendment. However, he also held that the four GOP candidates who failed to make it onto the Virginia ballot because they did not meet the 10,000-signature requirement had waited too late to raise their constitutional claims. (Perry did not file suit until the end of December and the other three candidates joined his lawsuit last week.)
Under the legal doctrine of laches, parties with a claim have an obligation to assert it and cannot engage in unreasonable or unjustified delay.