On January 27, all three judges in the Alabama U.S. House redistricting case forcefully rejected a request from the state for a stay. The three judges wrote 34 pages, and rebut the state’s argument that the plaintiffs had conceded that two African-American majority districts cannot be drawn unless all traditional redistricting guidelines (compactness, not splitting jurisdictions, etc.) are set aside. The judges say they have reviewed every brief, every piece of evidence, and the transcripts of the oral argument, and plaintiffs did not make such a concession. Read it here.

Two Mississippi representatives have introduced HC 39, a proposed constitutional amendment to bring back the statewide initiative. Here is the text. The old constitutional provision for an initiative had been invalidated last year by the State Supreme Court because it was worded to require signatures from five U.S. House districts, yet for the last twenty years the state has only had four U.S. House districts.

The bill would delete any reference to the number of U.S. House districts, but it would still require signatures from all districts.

The authors are Fred Shanks (R-Brandon) and Philip Gunn (R-Jackson). Gunn is Speaker of the House. If the bill passes, then it will be on the November 2022 ballot to ask the voters if they wish to approve it.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s website now has the petition requirements for independent candidates for U.S. House, and the nominees of parties that didn’t poll 20% of the vote for president or governor in the last election. The requirements range from 21,681 signatures to 27,703 signatures. See them here.

In the entire history of the United States, there are only six instances when any candidate completed a petition for U.S. House that required more than 10,000 signatures. The biggest hurdle ever overcome was in North Carolina in 2010, when a petition requirement of 16,292 was overcome, with the help of a very powerful union, the S.E.I.U. It had dozens of full-time petitioners who went door-to-door throughout the district.