On the early evening of February 7, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the decision of a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Merrill v Milligan, 21A375. This is the case over Alabama’s new U.S. House districts. The lower court had said that the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to draw two U.S. House districts with African-American majorities. The legislature’s plan, enacted late last year, only has one such district. Blacks are 27% of the population of Alabama.

Here is Professor Rick Hasen’s analysis of the decision. His blog post has a link to the various writings of members of the Supreme Court. The vote was 5-4. The three Democratic appointees, plus Chief Justice John Roberts, were in the minority.

It remains true that no petitioning candidate for U.S. House in Alabama could have started to petition until the evening of February 7, because no one could have known what the boundaries would be. If there is any petitioning candidate this year, either independent or minor party, he or she has a strong case that the number of signatures for U.S. House should be substantially reduced this year. Ordinarily these petitions can take approximately 18 months, but this year such petitions must be completed in three months. Therefore, by several precedents in the Eleventh circuit states (Florida, Georgia, and Alabama) the number of signatures should be reduced to approximately one-sixth of the normal. Normally these petitions require approximately 7,000 signatures.

The Los Angeles Times has this article about the Common Sense Party. The article says the party submitted about 66,000 registration cards. The article also says the party only needs about 55,000 registered members in order to qualify. The conclusion is not necessarily true; there is an ambiguity in the law about whether independent voters are included in the calculation. The law says a new party needs registration of .33% of the state total, not counting “unknown” voters. The article says that means the independent voters are also not counted when the percentage is calculated, but “unknown” voters are a separate category.

The article also says that except for Green Party candidate Audie Bock in 1999, no minor party has won a partisan election in California since the 1910’s decade. But the author did not seem to know that in 1936, the Progressive Party of California elected Franck Havenner to the U.S. House from a San Francisco district. The Progressive Party of California of the 1930’s was not associated with any nationally-organized party. It had been formed in 1934 by U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson.

The story says the Secretary of State won’t reveal whether the Common Sense Party has qualified until February 22, even though state law says she should have made that determination by January 23. It may be the announcement is being delayed to give the Secretary of State more time to decide what the requirement is. Thanks to Michael Feinstein for the link.

On January 4, the Republican National Committee gave preliminary approval to a rules change, requiring the Republican presidential nominee not to participate in the general election debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The change won’t be final it is approved again in the summer of 2022. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.