On July 12, attorneys for the state of California filed this brief in the case over whether paid petitioners must be classed as employees instead of independent contractors. Thanks to Aaron Starr for the link.
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On July 1, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed SB 80, which puts party labels on general election ballots for candidates for Supreme Court Justice and Judge of a State Appeals Court. The office has always been partisan, with party nominees chosen in primaries. But the general election ballots always omitted party labels for those offices.
This outcome is ironic, because a decade ago, the Ohio Democratic Party sued to force the state to print such labels on general election ballots, but the party lost the case. Since then, however, Democratic nominees have been doing better than Republicans for those offices, so now it is the Republican majority in the legislature that decided they want party labels.
On July 12, the Libertarian Party announced the results of the ranked choice voting for national chair of the party. The new chair is Whitney Bilyeu, who has recently been the state chair of the Texas party. There were five rounds before a winner was determined. The decision was made by the national committee, meeting yesterday by zoom.
She is the fourth female in that position. The first was Susan Nolan; the second was Alicia Clark; the third was Mary Gingell.
On July 12, an Alaska state trial court will hear oral argument in Kohlhaas v State, 3AN-20-09532. This is the case filed last year against the new Alaska election law that lets candidates appear on the general ballot with the party label, even though the party does not necessarily support them. The only political party in the lawsuit is the Alaskan Independence Party. However there are individual plaintiffs from other parties. See this story.
On June 23, a professional petitioning firm, and a PAC that wants to hire it, sued California over its 2019 law that classifies paid petitioners as employees instead of as independent contractors. Mobilize the Message v Bonta, c.d., 2:21cv-5115. Here is the 17-page Complaint.
The California law does not classify door-to-door salespersons as employees, nor individuals who delivery newspapers door-to-door, so the lawsuit points out that California is granting more freedom for commercial speech than for political speech. Thanks to the Free Speech Institute for this news.