O June 5, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an order in Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089.  This is the case over the 2019 Texas law that candidates who seek to be nominated at a convention must have paid the filing fee before they can be considered.  In Texas, small ballot-qualified parties nominate by convention, not primary.

Judge Pitman denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, and scheduled a trial for September 8, 2025 (not 2024).  He wrote, “It is a reasonable possibility that this filing fee structure does little to advance Texas’s interest in preventing ballot overcrowding or ensuring public support.”

The Texas laws says that filing fees paid by convention candidates are kept by the government.  But filing fees paid by candidates running in a primary are given to those political parties.  The ruling says it is plausible that the Texas scheme violates freedom of association for convention parties, and also violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On June 27, the Utah Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Phillips v Henderson, 2023-1098.  This is the case over a proposed initiative to make it illegal for congressional candidates to run for election or re-election if they will attain age 81 during the new term in office.  The Court said the proponents can’t even begin to qualify the initiative, because even if it got on the ballot and passed, it would violate the U.S. Supreme Court opinion U.S. Term Limits v Thornton (2005).

The decision does say the initiative proponents have standing.  They will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.  Thus, eventually, there may be two cases asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the term limits case.  The first would be from North Dakota, where the voters passed an initiative earlier this month setting similar age limits for congress.  So far, no one has sued to overturn the North Dakota initiative.

On June 26, the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 to postpone deciding whether three new parties should be on the ballot.  The three parties are the Justice for All Party (which supports Cornel West for president), We the People Party (which supports Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for president) and the Constitution Party.

Another meeting will be held July 9, Tuesday.

The Board votes were all 3-2, with the two Republican members voting to approve all three parties.  The three Democratic members said they are concerned that the Constitution Party petition lists the party’s address on the petition instead of the address of the state chair.  The three Democrats said that they feel the other two party petitions might have tricked some voters into signing.

The county boards have determined that all three petitions have enough valid signatures.  In 2022, when the State Board refused to approve the Green Party petition even though the county boards said it had enough signatures, the Green Party sued in federal court and forced the state to put it on the ballot.  One of the two Republicans said that the state board is likely to get sued again.