On September 20, Ohio filed this response in the U.S. Supreme Court in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Crites, 21-226. This is the case over the composition of the state Elections Commission, which must contain three members of each of the two largest parties, and one person who is not a member of any party.

The state says that because the Ohio Libertarian Party went off the ballot after the November 2020 election, it has no members and therefore anyone associated with the Libertarian Party is not blocked from applying to be on the commission. It also says that when the case was filed, its member who is a co-plaintiff would not have been eligible anyway, because he was an officer in the Ohio Libertarian Party, and the law does not permit officers of parties to serve on the Commission.

The National Committee of the Democratic Party is fighting to overturn the Arizona law on the order of candidates on the general election ballot. Arizona law puts the nominees of the party that won the last gubernatorial race (within each county) on the top line of the ballot.

On September 13, the Democratic Party filed this two-page letter brief, explaining that the fact that the party had lost its West Virginia case on September 1, on the same issue, should not control the Arizona case.

In 2020, the Democratic Party had filed lawsuits against six states that were putting Republican nominees on the ballot above Democratic nominees. So far the party had lost all of them, except the Arizona case is still alive. The other states, besides West Virginia, were Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Minnesota. The Democratic Party briefs in these cases consistently weaken their own case, by always arguing that any relief should only apply to major parties, and not minor parties or independent candidates.

As reported here earlier, on September 2 Jason Gonzales asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Gonzales v Madigan, 21-352. This is the case in which Gonzales charged that his Democratic primary opponent, Illinois speaker Michael Madigan, in 2016 had recruited two candidates with Hispanic surnames to enter the primary for State House in their contest, so as to split the Hispanic vote. These were two individuals who had no interest in running for the state legislature, and merely filed to assist Madigan. Although this situation may seem an odd reason for a lawsuit, there had been a Seventh Circuit precedent in 1974 that said recruiting “sham” candidates violates the U.S. Constitution. Illinois is in the Seventh Circuit. Nevertheless, Gonzales lost his case in the lower federal courts.

Madigan wasted no time in telling the U.S. Supreme Court that he would not bother to file a response to the Gonzales cert petition; he said so on September 7. Of course, if the U.S. Supreme Court wants a response from Madigan, they can ask for it, and in that case of course Madigan would respond.