On May 13, the Louisiana legislature amended HB 842, an omnibus election law bill, to provide that for 2026 only, U.S. House elections will be handled as they were between 1998 and 2024. All candidates can get on the November ballot by paying a filing fee. No petition is needed. If anyone gets 50% in November, they are elected. If no one gets 50%, there is a December run-off.

Without this bill, Louisiana would have used a closed primary in 2026 for U.S. House, in which only Democrats and Republicans would have been allowed on the November ballot without a petition. This bill only passed because Louisiana is redrawing its U.S. House districts, and there isn’t time to hold a closed primary and a run-off primary.

The bill says candidates may file for U.S. House this year between August 5 and August 7.

The bill also has unrelated provisions, including one that says in the future, when voters sign a petition, they must include their year of birth.

On May 11, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Darrow refused to enjoin the Illinois 5% petition requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House. Flowers v Illinois State Board of Elections, c.d., 4:26cv-4062. Here is the opinion. It ignores the fact that no independent candidate for U.S. House in Illinois has managed to qualify since 1974 if the petition was challenged (excluding years ending in “2”, when the 5% requirement does not apply). The opinion says ten candidates have qualified in the last few decades for U.S. House, but they were candidates who were not challenged or who were running in years ending in “2”.

The decision depends on the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision Jenness v Fortson, but it fails to say that the reason the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that 5% petition was that the record showed that Georgia’s petition requirement had been successfully used in each of the two preceding elections before the case had been filed. And the opinion also errs when it says the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a June petition deadline in Jenness v Fortson. As Justice Stevens explained in Mandel v Bradley, the plaintiffs in Jenness did not challenge the petition deadline, so anything in Jenness about the deadline is dicta.

The order is also flawed because it implies that the only time the U.S. Supreme Court ever struck down a petition requirement on the grounds that too many signatures were required was in 1968, in Williams v Rhodes. The order does not mention the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision Illinois State Board of Elections v Socialist Workers Party, in 1979, which struck down a petition requirement of approximately 2%. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that again in 1992 in Norman v Reed, yet another Illinois case.

Nor does the order mention the U.S. Supreme Court decision Storer v Brown, from 1974, which said there is no litmus test for evaluating petition requirements.

Judge Darrow has a bad record on ballot access. She had previously upheld the same 5% petition for U.S. House in Gill v Scholz.

On May 13, West Virginia filed this amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Scott v McDougle, 25A1240. The West Virginia brief is opposed to Virginia’s position, and says the U.S. Supreme Court should not hear Virginia’s appeal on redistricting.