On January 14, a 3-judge U.S. District Court refused to enjoin the new California U.S. House district boundaries. Tangipa v Newsom, c.d., 2:25cv-10616.
The vote was 2-1. Judge Josephine Seaton, an Obama appointee, wrote the decision. The decision is also signed by Judge Wesley Hsu, a Biden appointee. Judge Kenneth K. Lee, a Trump appointee, dissented. Here is the decision. The majority wrote 70 pages, and the dissent occupies 47 pages.
Arkansas has always had open primaries. But in the summer of 2025,, the Arkansas Republican Party approved a rule change that does not allow registered members of other parties to vote in its primaries, although it does allow independents to vote in its primaries. Arkansas law allows parties to decide to exclude members of other parties.
Arkansas held a special primary on January 6 for the Republican Party, in connection with the special election to fill the vacancy in the State Senate, 26th district. This was the first semi-closed primary in Arkansas history. Five Republicans ran in the primary. No one got 50%, so there will be a run-off primary on February 3.
On January 2, Louisiana legislative leaders decided not to hold a special legislative session to redraw the U.S. House district boundaries. See this story. The U.S. Supreme Court still hasn’t issued its decision in Callais v Louisiana. The Republican majority in the legislature had been hoping that the Court would invalidate the old districts, and that might still happen, but there isn’t enough time to draw new districts if that happens. See this story.
On January 7, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory B. Williams ruled against No Labels in the trademark lawsuit No Labels had filed against a parody site that made it seem No Labels supported President Trump. No Labels v Delco0222024, Inc., US District Court, Delaware, 1:23cv-1384.
The decision is based on procedure. The judge found that almost all of the defendants did not have enough connection to the state of Delaware. Therefore, No Labels should have sued each of them in the in the states in which each of them resided.
The judge also found that No Labels did not have standing to sue the one defendant who did have connection to Delaware.
This is an anticlimatic end of an interesting lawsuit that was filed three years ago.
On January 7, Roberto Mondragon died at the age of 85. He was the Green Party nominee for Governor of New Mexico in 1994. Also he had been the Lieutenant Governor (elected as a Democrat) for two terms before 1994. He is one of only two Greens who ever polled more than 10% of the vote for Governor.
Mondragon polled 10.26%; Richard Whitney in 2006 polled 10.36% for Governor of Illinois. Each of them was responsible for making the Green Party a fully ballot-qualified party in each of those two states.
See this story.
