An Alaska state court will hear oral arguments on Friday, September 26, on whether state election officials erred when they let an independent gubernatorial candidate, Bill Walker, substitute a new Lieutenant Governor running mate. The new running mate is the former Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee, who withdrew and formed a unity ticket. See this story.
On September 25, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2766. It repeals sections of the election law that require candidates for party office to sign loyalty oaths. The law only applies to the Democratic, Republican, and American Independent Parties. The bill only passed because last year a Superior Court in San Luis Obispo County declared the oaths unconstitutional.
California still has an election law that says subversive parties should be removed from the ballot. In 1975 the legislative counsel ruled that law unconstitutional, but no one has ever introduced a bill to repeal that law. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously invalidated such laws in 1974 in Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb. Nevertheless, most Republican members of the California legislature voted “no” on AB 2766.
On September 25, the Fourth Circuit heard oral argument in North Carolina NAACP v McCrory, which is combined with League of Women Voters of North Carolina v State, 14-1856. Here is a story written shortly before the oral argument took place. The story mentions that all three judges are appointees of Democratic presidents: Diane G. Motz (Clinton); James Wynn (Obama); Henry Floyd (Obama).
There surely will be more stories about how the argument went in the next few hours. The issues are the restrictions on voting that the North Carolina legislature passed last year, such as cutbacks to early voting, election-day registration, and pre-registration for 17-year-olds, and other changes.
The Fourth Circuit is one of the few circuits that won’t reveal which judges are on the panel, until the day of the oral argument. In this case, the Fourth Circuit wouldn’t even release the names of the judges until noon, and the oral argument began at 1 p.m.
For the first time, the Modern Whig Party has placed a nominee on the ballot for a partisan office in Kentucky. He is Hooper (he has a one-word name), running for Constable, district 2, in McCracken County. Here is his web page. Constable is a partisan office. Here is the sample ballot for that precinct. Hooper needed 100 valid signatures to get on the ballot.
The Modern Whig Party of Kentucky also nominated a candidate for State House, but he did not get on the ballot.
Since 2013, democracy.com has been offering any candidate for public office the ability to build a campaign web page, without expense. Here is a story about democracy.com. Such campaign web pages include the ability for the candidate to solicit campaign contributions. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
