This story says the Republican Party is thinking about changing its presidential convention to allow only delegates and alternates into the hall. The convention is set for August 24-27. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
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On April 30, the Bread and Roses Party announced that its 2020 vice-presidential nominee will be John de Graaf of Seattle, a documentary filmmaker and author. Here is his web page.
The presidential nominee of the Bread and Roses Party is Jerome Segal. The party is only on the ballot in Maryland.
On April 29, several independent candidates filed a lawsuit to cut the number of signatures and obtain a later deadline. The lead plaintiff, Dan Whitfield, needs 10,000 signatures by May 1. He is running for U.S. Senate. He is over halfway with his drive, because he has been working on it since late last year. Whitfield v Thurston, e.d., 4:20cv-466. Here is the Complaint.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Kristine Baker, the same judge who struck down the Arkansas 3% petition for newly-qualifying parties last year.
On May 1, U.S. District Court Judge Sue Myerscough will hold a hearing in Bambenek v Althoff, c.d., 3:20cv-3107. This is a case filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield on April 27, requesting petition relief for a statewide initiative and a pair of local initiatives. The plaintiffs are trying to qualify a statewide initiative, but it needs 363,813 valid signatures by May 3. They are also trying to qualify local initiatives for Champaign County and also Decatur. They ask that electronic signatures be permitted, that the number of signatures be cut, that the deadlines be extended, and at least that notarization for each petition sheet be waived.
On April 29, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs in Jacobson v Lee, 19-14552, don’t have standing to challenge the Florida law that has put the Republican Party nominees on the top line of the ballot for the last twenty years. They also said the case is flawed because the plaintiffs should have sued the county election officials instead of the Secretary of state.
The U.S. District Court had invalidated the law.
The three judges were William Pryor, a Bush Jr. appointee; Jill Pryor, an Obama appointee; and Robert Luck, a Trump appointee. All three judges agreed that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The Florida Democratic Party was not a plaintiff, but the Democratic National Committee was. It is unclear if the case could be refiled with the Florida Democratic Party as a plaintiff.
Judge Jill Pryor thought that the Secretary of State was a proper defendant.
Judge William Pryor wrote separately (even though he wrote the majority opinion) to say that he thinks ballot order cannot be adjudicated in federal court becaues it is a “political question”, but the other two judges didn’t agree with that idea. Judge William Pryor feels that because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering cases can’t be considered by federal courts, therefore ballot order cases can’t either.