Texas Libertarian veteran party leaders Ted Brown and Pat Dixon are running for the two most important offices up in Texas in 2026. Ted Brown will run for U.S. Senate, and Pat Dixon will run for Governor. Both are former state chairs, although in Brown’s case, his service as state char was in California many years ago. Brown also ran for U.S. Senate in Texas in 2024, and he polled 267,039 votes, enough to meet the vote test for the party to remain on the ballot.
A bill is being introduced in the Quebec Provisional Parliament for proportional representation. It is supported by the Conservative Party. See this story.
The California Republican lawsuit against California’s new U.S. House district boundaries now has a three-judge panel. The three judges will be U.S. District Court Judge Josephine L. Staton (an Obama appointee); U.S. District Court Judge Wesley Hsu (a Biden appointee); and Ninth Circuit Judge Kenneth Kiyul Lee (a Trump appointee).
On November 18, the Eleventh Circuit issued an unsigned, unpublished order in Cowen v Raffensperger, 24-13164. It says the Libertarian Party must start an entirely new case if it wants to continue its challenge to the petition requirement for U.S. House nominees. The petition is 5% of the number of registered voters, which is so severe that it has never been used by a minor party in its 82-year-old history.
The case was filed in 2017. It initially lost in U.S. District Court, but then the Eleventh Circuit remanded it back to the U.S. District Court. Then it won in U.S. District Court. The state appealed and a different panel of the Eleventh Circuit upheld the law.
But then the Georgia legislature amended the election law to say that presidential nominees can be on the ballot automatically in Georgia if they are on the ballot in at least twenty other states. The Libertarian Party wanted to amend its Complaint to make a new argument, that by passing this presidential ballot access law, the state had waived its argument that it had a compelling interest in keeping candidates off the November ballot unless they had overwhelming support inside Georgia. After all, the new presidential law meant that a presidential candidate might get on the ballot even if he or she had no support at all in Georgia.
But the Eleenth Circuit said it was too late for the Libertarians to amend their Complaint, and to make this new argument, they must file an entirely new case.
On November 18, a 3-judge U.S. District Court enjoined the new Texas U.S. House district boundaries. The vote was 2-1. The decision is by U.S. District Court Judge David Brown, a Trump appointee. It is also signed by U.S. District Court Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama appointee. Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, a Reagan appointee, dissented.
Here is the 160-page opinion.
