On April 13, the Seventh Circuit heard oral argument in Hero v Lake County Election Board, 21-2793. The issue is whether the Republican Party had a right to exclude a candidate for local partisan office from its primary, based on his views about eminent domain. Here is a link to the oral argument. The judges were Ilana Rovner, a Bush Sr. appointee; Diane Wood, a Clinton appointee; and Amy St. Eve, a Trump appointee.
On April 13, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee let HB 2764 go into effect. This is the bill to require candidates for Congress to have lived three years in Tennessee. The Governor chose not to sign the bill, but instead to let it go into effect without his signature. He probably realized that if he vetoed the bill, the legislature would override his veto.
The new law absolutely violates the U.S. Constitution. There is already a federal lawsuit attacking it, which was filed even before the bill became a law.
This City & State newspaper story explains why New York’s Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin is almost certain to remain on the June primary ballot, despite his recent indictment.
Two other candidates are on the Democratic ballot, David Englert and Diana Reyna.
On April 11, an Arkansas state trial court judge held a hearing to decide if Sandra Young Harris should be restored to the May 24 primary ballot as a candidate for judge.
On her political practices pledge, she had written that she is running for the 11th West Judicial Circuit, Division 4, sub-district 11.2. She meant to say she is running for the 11th West Judicial Circuit, Division 4, sub-district 11.1. There is no race in sub-district 11.2. Ironically, she wasn’t even required to fill out that form. See this story. She sued to be placed on the ballot, and a decision is likely this week.
As previously noted, last year a U.S. District Court invalidated the Georgia ballot access law governing petitions for U.S. House, but early this year, the Eleventh Circuit reversed most of that decision and upheld the Georgia law under the First Amendment. However, the Libertarian Party had also argued that the 1943 law violates the Equal Protection Clause because it was passed for a discriminatory purpose. The U.S. District Court Judge had not adjudicated that claim, because she hadn’t needed to, because she was eliminating the law on different grounds.
On April 12, the U.S. District Court agreed to adjudicate the Equal Protection part of the case, and set a briefing schedule for that part of the case. The plaintiffs’ brief is due May 4; the state’s brief is due May 25; the Libertarian reply brief is due June 8.
The evidence submitted so far, on the discriminatory purpose part of the case, is that the 1943 session of the legislature created the 5% petition in order to make sure that the Communist Party did not again appear on the ballot. The evidence is based on newspaper accounts of the legislature’s motivation. Before the 1943 law, Georgia permitted any party to place nominees on the general election ballot with no petition and no fee. So even though the Communist Party was extremely weak in Georgia throughout its entire history, it did appear on the ballot in 1928 and 1932, and it tried to get on in 1940, but the Secretary of State refused to put it on the ballot even though it complied with all requirements.
