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.

On March 30, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed HB 272. For 2020 only, it extends the independent presidential petition deadline from August 13 to August 20.

It also gives qualified parties more time to certify the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees. The new deadline for that is August 27, which happens to be the last day of the Republican presidential convention. The old date was August 19, so if the bill had not passed, the Republican Party would have had to certify its nominees before they were officially nominated.

On May 23, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew F. Kennelly denied reconsideration in Gonzales v Madigan, n.d., 1:16cv-7915. The request had been pending since September 20, 2019. The case was filed in 2016 by an Illinois Democratic primary candidate, Jason Gonzales, against his primary opponent, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Gonzales had charged that Madigan had found a “sham” candidate with a Hispanic surname to enter their primary, so as to split the vote of Democratic primary voters who might want to vote for anyone with a Hispanic name. The district is majority-Hispanic.

The lawsuit was based on a Seventh Circuit opinion from 1973, Smith v Cherry, 489 F.2d 1098, which said that recruiting a sham candidate can be a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Gonzales case is now so old, it will be interesting to see if Gonzales appeals.