Trial Dates Set for Illinois Lawsuit Over Legislative Redistricting

Posted on by July 25, 2021
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A 3-judge U.S. District Court will hold a trial September 27-29 in McConachie v Illinois State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:21cv-3091. This is the lawsuit over the validity of the Illinois legislative redistricting for the new decade. The Illinois legislature is the only legislature in the nation that has already drawn new legislative districts. Because the 2020 census data isn’t available yet, the legislature used other data from the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau but a far cry from the regular census. Two sets of plaintiffs are asking the court to rule the legislative districts invalid, and to force the legislature to do the job again once the census data is available in August.

An irony is that Illinois legislative district boundaries now may be delayed more than if the legislature had simply waited until the census data is available.

The Illinois legislature has not done any U.S. House redistricting yet.

Six Petitioning Candidates Qualified for General Election for Mayor of New York City

Posted on by July 25, 2021
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Six candidates for Mayor of New York successfully completed the petition to be on the November 2021 ballot for Mayor of New York city. In addition, each of the four qualified parties nominated someone.

The six petition candidates are: Quanda Francis, Empowerment; Raja Flores, Humanity United; Stacey Prussman, Libertarian; Skiboky Stora, Our Lawbreaker; Catherine Rojas, Party for Socialism & Liberation; and Fernando Mateo, Save Our City.

The nominees of the qualified parties are: Democratic, Eric Adams; Republican, Curtis Sliwa; Conservative, William Pepitone; Working Families not yet determined.

The petitioning candidates each needed 3,750 signatures. Although that sounds like a modest requirement, there is no other instance for an election in 2021 in which a minor party or independent candidate overcame any petition requirement greater than that.

Congressional Bill to Set up Commission to Study How to Handle Death of a Presidential Candidate in Cases When U.S. House is Choosing the President

Posted on by July 24, 2021
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Congressmembers Rodney Davis (R-Illinois) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia) have introduced a bill to set up a commission of constitutional scholars, to make recommendations for what should be done if no one gets an electoral college majority, and then one of the three candidates being considered for the presidency by the U.S. House dies before the House votes. Here is the text. It doesn’t have a bill number yet.

There are many problems with the U.S. presidential selection process, but most of them have answers. But the scenario mentioned in the bill has no guidelines whatsoever. However, the possibility of no one getting a majority in the electoral college, and then one of the three top candidates dies before the U.S. House votes, seems extremely unlikely. Ever since the 12th amendment passed in 1804, we have only had one presidential election in which no one got a majority of the electoral vote, after disputes about the proper electoral vote count had been settled. Thanks to Election Law Blog for this news.