Last month, nine state Libertarian Parties filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the constitutionality of civil assert forfeiture in certain situations. The case is Barton v Securities & Exchange Commission, 25-465. The state parties are Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
Also the We the People Party of Pennsylvania signed on. Here is the amicus.
The Coastal Observer, a weekly newspaper in South Carolina, has this comprehensive story about Jay Doyle, who was elected Mayor of Georgetown, South Carolina last month as the Forward Party nominee. The election was partisan.
New York State Senator James Skoufis and Assemblymember Landon Dais have introduced bills to move New York presidential primaries from April to early March. The bills don’t have numbers yet. The bills would have no effect on the congressional/state office primaries, which would continue to be in late June.
If the bills pass, six of the seven most populous states will hold presidential primaries on the same day in early March. Only Pennsylvania would not participate on “super Tuesday.”
CALIFORNIA TOP-TWO SYSTEM MAY DISTORT 2026 GUBERNATORIAL RACE
Since 2011, California has had a top-two system in which all candidates for partisan state office and Congress run on a single primary ballot. Then only the top two candidates run in November. There is no write-in space on the ballot in November for top-two offices.
Eight Democrats with significant campaign resources have announced for the June 2026 primary for Governor, and only two Republicans with significant campaigns are running. This opens the possibility that the two Republicans might place first and second in the primary, because the majority party, the Democratic Party, has so many candidates.
Four polls taken at the end of October have showed one or the other of the two Republicans in the lead. The Republicans are Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Fox News host Steve Hilton.
The eight Democrats, in the order in which they filed, are Tony Thurmond (Superintendent of Public Instruction), Betty Yee (former Controller), Antonio Villaraigosa (former Los Angeles Mayor), Stephen Cloobeck (billionaire businessman), Katie Porter (former U.S. House member), Xavier Becerra (former Attorney General), Tom Steyer (billionaire businessman), and Eric Swalwell (U.S. House member).
Here are the recent polls:
EMC Research shows Hilton leading with 20%, followed by Porter at 16% and Bianco at 16%.
Ben Tulchin Polls shows Bianco at 20% followed by Villaraigosa at 19% and Hilton at 18%.
Emerson College Polls shows Hilton at 16%, Porter at 15%, and Biancho at 11%.
UC IGS Polls shows Bianco at 13%, Porter at 11%, Hilton at 8%, and Becerra at 8%.
On December 5, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would hear the two birthright citizenship cases that President Trump had lost in the lower courts. The two cases, which are now combined, are Trump v Barbara, and Trump v State of Washington. One is from the First Circuit and originated in New Hampshire; the other is from the Ninth Circuit. The combined case is 25-365.
Here is the government’s cert petition. It argued that the 14th amendment’s definition of citizen was never intended to cover children born in the U.S. if their parents weren’t in the U.S. legally.
The practical problem with the government’s position is that it creates ambiguity. Currently a birth certificate showing birthplace in the U.S. is accepted as proof of citizenship. But under President Trump’s order, which was issued January 20, 2025, one can’t prove citizenship with a birth certificate. Instead one must produce evidence about one’s parents and their legal status. Some individuals don’t even know who their birth parents are.
