The Texas Secretary of State has ruled that the non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline this year will be August 13. That is because the law says that deadline is 30 days after the runoff primary, and the Secretary of State had already moved the runoff primary to July 14.

However, the Texas presidential independent candidate deadline continues to be May 11, because the law on that deadline does not tie the deadline to the primary date. It seems obvious that if Texas is going to let independent candidates for office other than president submit their petitions in August, there is no valid reason not to let independent presidential candidates have the same deadline. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.

Illinois law requires candidates for state office (including all three branches of state government) to file Statements of Economic Interest during election years. On March 17, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker issued Executive Order No. 8. Among other things, in section two it suspends this requirement for the next few months. See section 2 in the “therefore” section.

Executive Order No. 5 bans gatherings greater than 50 people.

But no order suspended the need for petitions to get on the ballot. The Illinois primary for all partisan office was earlier this month, and all petitioning for the primary was completed late last year, so there is no longer any need for Republicans or Democrats to petition this year. But minor party and independent candidates circulate their petitions from March 24 through June 22. The Governor has been asked to do something about this problem, but so far he has not even mentioned it, as far as is known. Thanks to Vito Mastrangelo for the link.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering whether to hear Elster v City of Seattle, 19-608. The Court had this case on its March 20 conference, but on March 18, the Court said it would instead consider it at some later conference; the date for that future conference has not yet been decided.

The issue is the Seattle city policy of issuing campaign finance vouchers to every registered voter. The voter can use them to help his or her favorite candidate for city office. The voter gives the candidate a voucher, and then that candidate can turn it in for money for the campaign. The city pays for this program with a tax. The opponents of the system say it violates the First Amendment by forcing taxpayers to subsidize speech they disagree with. The Washington State Supreme Court had upheld the program.