On February 20, the Arkansas Libertarian Party state convention nominated 39 candidates for the state legislature. The party is ballot-qualified and nominates by convention. See this story. That is easily the highest number of nominees for the Arkansas legislature by any party, other than the Republican and Democratic Parties, since the 1890’s.

Even though Arkansas had no ballot access barriers for minor parties whatsoever before 1971, for some reason minor parties ran very few candidates for Arkansas state office during the 20th century. Thanks to Nick Sarwark for the link.

Jeff Coleman is a Republican candidate for U.S. House, second district, who filed for the Republican primary on February 10. That was one day before the deadline set out in the redistricting decision by a 3-judge U.S. District Court. But his ballot access is doubtful because the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the order of the U.S. District Court on February 7, and the state won’t recognize candidates who relied on the date change made by the U.S. District Court.

Coleman asked the 3-judge court to resolve the matter, but in response the state says Coleman has no right to intervene in the case. Presumably the state expects him to file his own entirely new lawsuit, which of course takes time. Here is the state’s brief, opposing Coleman’s request to intervene in Singleton v Merrill, n.d., 2:21cv-1291.

On February 8, some of the plaintiffs in a separate Alabama U.S. House redistricting case asked the original 3-judge panel to rule in their favor, notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court stay in a different Alabama redistricting case on the afternoon of February 7. The plaintiffs have a theory under which the 3-judge court could do that. See their filing here. Singleton v Merrill, n.d., 2:21cv-1291. Singleton v Merrill, n.d., 2:21cv-1291.