On the evening of May 2, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed S8949, the bill passed earlier that day that allows indicted candidates to remove themselves from ballots.
2
The U.S. Supreme Court is very likely to allow states to almost completely ban abortion. This Vox article has a map showing the 22 states that have abortion bans on their statute books. Eleven of these states have the statewide initiative process. Opponents of government control of abortion will probably use the initiative process. The eleven states with abortion bans, and with the initiative, are Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
A New York state trial court will consider a lawsuit on May 10 that argues the lower house of the legislature, the Assembly, also has unconstitutional districts. See this story. The U.S. House and State Senate districts have already been struck down by state courts.
On May 2, some New York voters filed a federal lawsuit, asking the federal court to use the U.S. House district boundaries that the highest State Court recently declared to violate the State Constitution. De Gaudenar v Kosinski, s.d., 1:22cv-3534. Here is the Complaint. It says that some years ago, another federal court ordered the state to hold its congressional primary in June, not September, because federal law requires overseas absentee ballots to be mailed at least 45 days before any primary or election.
Of course, New York can hold an August primary and there is still time to mail the overseas ballots. Some states still hold congressional primaries in early September, and they manage to comply with the federal law. Thanks to PoliticalWire for this news.
On May 2, the New York legislature passed S8949, which lets indicted or convicted candidates withdraw from the ballot. This will allow New York’s former Lieutenant Governor to remove his name from the June primary ballot.
The bill had been introduced on April 29. This is an example of how fast the New York legislature can pass a bill, when it wants to. The bill takes effect immediately.