A U.S. District Court in Virginia will hold an oral argument in Lux v Judd on January 17, 2012. This is the case on Virginia’s law that forbids anyone from circulating a petition to get an independent candidate for U.S. House on the ballot, unless the circulator lives in that district. The Fourth Circuit already made it very difficult for the state to win this case, by ruling on July 6, 2011, that the law can’t be justified on the grounds that the requirement is needed to show that the candidate has support within that district. But the Fourth Circuit had sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to see if the state wants to make any new argument.