On February 15, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a lengthy opinion in Harper v Hall, 2022-NCSC-17, explaining why it had ruled on February 4 that the new U.S. House and legislative district boundaries constitute an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The majority opinion is 138 pages; the dissent is 74 pages. The vote, like the vote on February 4, is four-three. Here is the opinion. The majority is very eloquent about the harm done by partisan gerrymandering, and sets forth a prominent role for the State Constitutional provision that elections shall be “free and equal.”

The opinion may be useful in the near future when any independent candidate challenges the ballot access laws for independents. Those laws are very harsh. No independent candidate for either house of Congress has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot in North Carolina.

On February 14, Ohio informed the U.S. Supreme Court that it doesn’t expect to respond to the cert petition in Thompson v DeWine, 21-1120, the case over whether the state should have granted petitioning relief for initiative petitions during the Covid crisis. Of course if the Court wants Ohio to respond, it will inform the state, and then the state would respond.

This poll for the Arkansas gubernatorial general election suggests a candidate who is not either the Republican nor Democratic nominee would receive 7.5%. It is very likely that the Libertarian Party nominee will be the only person on the general election ballot, other than the Republican and Democratic nominees. A party must poll at least 3% for the office at the top of the ballot to retain its qualified status. The last time a third party polled well enough in Arkansas to remain ballot-qualified was in 1996, when Ross Perot’s showing kept the Reform Party on the ballot.