U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan, a Bush Jr. appointee, holds a hearing on June 30, at 11 a.m., in Angle v Miller, 2:09-cv-1969.  The case challenges a Nevada law that says initiative circulators must sign a statement that all the signers are registered voters.  The lawsuit complains that the circulators can’t know that information, and it is intimidating to force them to sign a statement that isn’t true.

The case also challenges the distribution requirement for initiatives.  Proponents must collect a substantial number of signatures in each of the three U.S. House districts.  That part of the lawsuit will be difficult to win.  No court has ever invalidated a distribution requirement for statewide petitions that is based on U.S. House districts, because U.S. House districts have equal populations, at least at the beginning of any decade.  Finally, the lawsuit challenges Nevada’s extremely strict single-subject rule.  See this story.  The plaintiff in this case is Sharron Angle, who was not particularly famous in 2009 when she filed the case.  She is this year’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.