On February 22, the Secretary of State of Maine filed a notice of appeal in We the People PAC v Bellows. This is the case in which the U.S. District Court last week enjoined the prohibition on out-of-state circulators for initiative petitions.
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On February 19, a Virginia Circuit Court in the city of Richmond rejected the lawsuit by State Senator Amanda Chase to force her party, the Republican Party, to hold a 2021 gubernatorial primary. The opinion says she lacks standing. She is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination this year.
On February 19, the Washington State House Appropriations Committee passed HB 1156 by 22-11. It allows local governments to use ranked choice voting for elections for their own officers. The bill does not require local governments to use two rounds. But the bill says if a local government chooses to use two rounds, then the top five candidates would qualify for the second round.
The bill had passed the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee on February 11. It now goes to the House floor.
The Eighth Circuit will hear Whitfield v Thurston, 20-2309, on March 18, 2021. This is the case over whether the Arkansas ballot access petition for statewide independent candidates should have been relaxed last year, given the health crisis. The law required 10,000 signatures by early May. The plaintiff-candidate, Dan Whitfield, was running for U.S. Senate. The courts denied injunctive relief but the issue of declaratory relief is still unsettled.
On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that it will not hear four pending Pennsylvania cases filed by former President Donald Trump, or his campaign, or the Republican Party, over the 2020 election returns.
Still pending are two similar cases from other states. They will be considered on the Court’s March 5 conference. They are 20-887, Wood v Raffensperger, a Georgia case; and 20-883, Trump v Wisconsin Elections Commission, a Wisconsin case.
The four denied Pennsylvania cases are 20-542, 20-574, 20-845, and 20-810. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s refusal to hear the first two. He wrote an eleven-page dissent arguing the Court should have heard them. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito also dissented from the Court’s refusal to hear those two; they wrote their own separate four-page dissent.
On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to hear the Michigan Republican case concerning the election results, but it would have been extraordinary if the Court had accepted that one, because that case has not even been heard yet in the U.S. Court of Appeals. King v Whitmer, 20-815. Also on February 22, the Court refused to hear another Trump Wisconsin election case, 20-882.