On July 30, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Thompson v Hebdon, 17-35019, a case over various Alaska campaign finance restrictions. The opinoin strikes down the law that says candidates can’t accept more than $3,000 in contributions from persons living outside Alaska. It also strikes down the law that prohibits individuals from giving more than $500 to a candidate or a political group. The vote was 2-1. Here is the opinion. Thanks to Aaron Starr for this news.
This Politico story explains that Democrats in both houses of Congress are working on a new election law bill. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
On July 26, the Illinois State Appellate Court ruled that objections to the petition of Bill Redpath, Libertarian nominee for U.S. House in 2020 in the Sixth District, were not meritorious. Bixler v Illinois State Board of Elections, 2021 200458-U. Here is the 12-page order.
On July 30, supporters of the California gubernatorial recall filed a lawsuit to censor Governor Gavin Newsom’s statements in the Voters Handbook. Heatlie v Weber, Sacramento Superior Court. Here is the Petition for Mandate. Governor Newsom’s statement says, in part, “Vote No on the recall of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to stop the Republican takeover of our state.”
The lawsuit proponents want to eliminate the word “Democratic” in Newsom’s statement. The lawsuit also claims that some of the other sentences in Newsom’s statement are “false or misleading”. For example, his statement says, “The recall is an attempt by national Republicans and Trump supporters to force an election and grab power in California.”
On July 30, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vetoed HB 98, which would have moved the independent candidate petition deadline from August to July, and moved the deadline for their declarations of candidacy from June to May. See this story. The bill also moved the non-presidential primary from September to August.
