On January 22, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard sued Hillary Clinton for saying on the air in October, 2019, that Gabbard is a “Russian agent.” The same interview with Hillary Clinton also suggested that Jill Stein was a Russian agent. The case is Gabbard v Clinton, 1:20cv-558. It has not yet been assigned to a judge. Here is the Complaint.
Last year the South Carolina Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit against the law that requires voter registration applicants to disclose their full Social Security number. On January 16, the state agreed to settle the lawsuit, and require only the last four digits. The case was South Carolina Democratic Party v Andino, 3:19cv-3308. Here is the Democratic Party’s dismissal of the case.
Now the only two states that require the full social security number are Virginia and Tennessee. Normally the 1974 federal Privacy Act would prevent states from requiring the full SSN. However the three states mentioned in this blog post had been requiring the full SSN since before the 1974 federal act took effect, so they were exempt from the federal law.
On January 21, the Democratic Party filed this brief in Jacobson v Lee, 19-14552, the case over the law on order of candidates on the general election ballot. The U.S. District Court had struck down the law, and the state is appealing. The law says the party that won the most recent gubernatorial election will have its nominees listed first.
On January 16, the Kentucky Senate passed SB 3. It moves the gubernatorial election from the odd year before a presidential election, to a presidential election year. The vote was 31-3.
Currently five states have gubernatorial elections in odd years: Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia.
Ian Millhiser has written this article for Vox. It seems to predict that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that presidential electors are free to vote for any qualified candidate when they cast a vote in December in the electoral college. Millhiser thinks this would make the electoral college system worse.
He does not acknowledge the point that if the Court does uphold presidential elector freedom, that will make it easier for a constitutional amendment to pass that changes the electoral college system. Even supporters of the electoral college, such as Tara Ross, would like to see an amendment that eliminates the actual presidential electors, and instead creates an automatic tally of electoral votes for the candidate who won that state’s popular vote. Supporters of the electoral college would also like to guarantee that each state must use a popular vote. Currently the Constitution allows states to let state legislators choose the electors.
