Neal Simon, who was an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2018, has this op-ed in favor of a multi-party system for the U.S. Thanks to Fairvote for the link.
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On January 28, the Brennan Center, which was formed by former law clerks to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan to advance his goals, filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Carney v Adams, 19-309. The Brennan Center brief is in support of the Delaware law that does not permit anyone to be appointed to most state courts in the state, unless they are members of a party that has registration of at least 5% of the total registration.
The case was filed by an independent attorney who would like to be appointed to a judicial office. It is supremely ironic that the Brennan Center has sided against the independent applicant, because Justice Brennan authored Elrod v Burns in 1976, striking down the patronage system for most government hiring decisions.
On January 30, Rocky De La Fuente dismissed his lawsuit over access to the Republican presidential primary ballot in Michigan. Gonzalez v Benson, e.d., 2:19cv-13515. Michigan says the Secretary of State puts candidates on presidential primary ballots if they are discussed in the news media. She ruled that De La Fuente is not discussed in the news media, and left him off the ballot. He sued last year but has now decided not to pursue the case.
On January 27, the Wisconsin Election Commission ruled that Brent Fennessey, a Superior, Wisconsin city council member, should be on the ballot in the upcoming April 2020 election. In Wisconsin, candidates for local office are supposed to certify their petitions before they start to circulate them. Fennessey accidentally showed on his paperwork that he had not certified his petitions until after he had circulated them. So, someone challenged his ballot position at 4:25 pm on the deadline date.
Even though the city clerk’s office closes at 4:30 pm, the city clerk’s office allowed Fennessey into the office at 4:59 pm so he could correct the error. The challenger then complained to the Wisconsin Election Commission that he should not have been allowed to do that. But the Commission sided with the candidate. See this story.
According to this story, Tulsi Gabbard’s lawsuit for slander against Hillary Clinton is stalled, because Hillary Clinton has not been served by process servers. The Secret Service turned the process server away, and told the process server to serve Clinton’s attorney. But then Clinton’s attorney also refused to accept the papers.