On June 30, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks, an Obama appointee, struck down some Arkansas restrictions on the initiative petitioning process. He set a trial to decide certain other issues, and he upheld the county distribution requirement. League of Women Voters of Arkansas v Jester, w.d., 5:25cv-5087. Here is the Opinion.

The ban on out-of-state circulators will go to trial. Also the ban on paying petitioners per-signature will go to trial.

Laws struck down include forcing initiative petitioners to show everyone they approach the petitioner’s photo-ID; the requirement that petitioners tell everyone they approach that initiative fraud is a criminal offense; that initiative sponsors disclose a list of all petitioners before the drive starts; that petitioners must have not committed any crime in the past; and a requirement that initiative sponsors pay the state for the costs of running legal notices in newspapers.

On June 30, the Delaware House passed HB 188, which lets independent voters vote in partisan primaries. The vote was 22-17. The vote was not partisan. The 17 “no” votes came from eleven Democrats and six Republicans.

On July 1, Columbia Journalism Review published an interview with Tucker Carlson. See it here. In the last fourth, he talks about doing everything he can to start a new political party.

See this story.