The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Arizona Libertarian Party v Hobbs, 19-757, at its Thursday, June 11 conference. This is the ballot access case. The Arizona law is not only repressive, it is discriminatory. It made it impossible for the Arizona Libertarian Party to place any candidates for Congress or partisan state office on the ballot in both 2016 and 2018. Yet the same law exempted the Green Party from those same stringent requirements, and Greens had easy procedures in 2016 and 2018 (although the Green Party went off the ballot in Arizona in November 2018).

The U.S. Supreme Court has not accepted any ballot access case filed by a minor party or an independent candidate since 1991. It would be very significant if it accepts this one. The Court has already shown some interest in the case, because it asked the state to respond to the Libertarian cert petition.

On May 26, the Sixth Circuit stayed the U.S. District Court decision in Thompson v Dewine. Last week the U.S. District Court had become the first federal court to give relief to initiative groups due to the health crisis. But the Sixth Circuit stayed the decision of the U.S. District Court, and implied that the First Amendment gives no protection for the initiative process.

Here is the Sixth Circuit order in case 20-3526. The three judges are: David McKeague and Jeffrey Sutton (Bush Jr. appointees) and John B. Nalbandian (a Trump appointee).

On May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Schmidt v LaRose, 19-974. This issue is whether local election-administration officials can reject an initiative, even though it has enough valid signatures, because they don’t believe the initiative would be legal or constitutional if the voters passed it. The case arose in Ohio. The initiative concerned marijuana law. The U.S. District Court had ruled partially in favor of the initiative proponents, but the Sixth Circuit had reversed and ruled in favor of the local government.