Maryland Attorney Stephen M. Shapiro, who has been involved fighting partisan gerrymanders for some time, has filed this amicus curiae in the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas redistricting case. It points out that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Rucho v Common Cause decision, which cleared the way for partisan gerrymandering, is in conflict with the Court’s earlier decisions Cook v Gralike and U.S. Term Limits v Thornton. Those two decisions said that states can’t write election laws that tend to determine the outcome of elections. The brief is very creative.

Cook v Gralike struck down Missouri laws that dictated ballot labels that tended to injure certain candidates and help other candidates. U.S. Term Limits v Thornton said states cannot create term limits for members of Congress.

The Prohibition Party has qualified to have its registrations tallied in Alaska. The only other unqualified parties in Alaska that have that status are the Green, Constitution, Veterans, and Clowns Parties. In addition, the party is waiting to see if its petition for presidential status in 2028 has enough valid signatures.

The only states in which the Prohibition Party has never been on a government-printed ballot are Alaska, Hawaii, and South Carolina.

WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE REPEALS LAW THAT ALMOST KEPT GREEN PARTY OFF 2024 BALLOT

On October 14, the Wisconsin legislature passed AB 149, which repeals a law that forced qualified parties to run candidates for the legislature if they wanted to be on the ballot for president.

The law says that qualified parties must choose their presidential elector candidates at an October meeting of the party’s legislators or their nominees for the legislature.  The meeting must be in the state capitol.  The law was passed in 1878 and had not been enforced in recent years.  Qualified minor parties don’t generally have any candidates for the Wisconsin legislature, because it is difficult for their members to get on their own party’s primary ballot.  For instance, in 2024, none of the three minor parties (Green, Constitution, and Libertarian) had any nominees for the legislature.  Their candidates need 200 signatures to get on the primary ballot for State House, and 400 for State Senate.

In 2024, an employee of the Democratic National Committee who lives in Wisconsin filed a legal document asking the Elections Commission to keep Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee, off the ballot because the Green Party had not chosen its presidential elector candidates according to the law, because it couldn’t.  The Commission refused to remove Stein.  If it had done so, logically it should also have removed the Libertarian and Constitution Party presidential nominees from the ballot, because their parties didn’t follow the law either.

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