On January 31, fourteen states filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Merrill v Milligan, the Alabama U.S. House redistricting lawsuit. Louisiana officials wrote the brief, which was then also signed by Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. All those states have Attorneys General who are Republicans. The brief is on the side of Alabama.

The main point of the amicus is that it is too late to redraw the Alabama districts. The brief admits that the lawsuit against the Alabama districts was filed on November 4, 2021, the very day the new Alabama districts were finalized. The brief complains about the difficulty for Alabama to redraw its districts given that the primary is May 24. But the brief does not acknowledge that Alabama could postpone its 2022 primary. In 2020 many states postponed primaries. Alabama congressional primaries were in June from 1986 through 2010. In 1980 they were in September.

On January 31, Silver Spring Township officials agreed to swear in Kevin Gaughen as an elected Township Auditor, after having first refused to do so, even though he was elected on November 2, 2021, and no one disputed that he met the qualifications. The election is partisan and Gaughen is a Libertarian.

The township refused to swear him in because it believed that it didn’t need any elected township auditors, because it had hired an accounting firm. But that decision was incorrect, as this Reason story shows. The Reason story ran before the officials decided to accept Gaughen. The Reason story generated enough local publicity to persuade the township to reverse its earlier stance.

Evan McMullin, independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Utah, raised $1,032,983 in the last three months, according to this news story. No one else running for U.S. Senate in Utah in 2022 raised that much. Incumbent Republican Mike Lee raised $523,142, but Lee had reserves so he still has more cash on hand than McMullin.