The U.S. Supreme Court had previously said it would consider whether to hear Chiafalo v Washington, 19-465, at its December 13 conference. But on December 5, the Court added an entry to the docket for this case, which reads simply, “Rescheduled.” Presumably this means the case won’t be discussed until January 10, 2020, when the other case involving presidential electors, the Colorado case, is to be discussed.
On December 5, California Assemblymember Chad Mayes said he is switching his registration from Republican to independent. He will run for re-election in 2020 as an independent. He lives in Yucca Valley, San Bernardino County, and was first elected to the Assembly in 2014. He is a former leader of the Republican Party in the Assembly.
Michigan voters who don’t like the state’s new redistricting commission, including the state Republican Party, have appealed to the Sixth Circuit in Daunt v Benson, 19-2377. The U.S. District Court had refused to enjoin the commission. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
On December 5, U.S. District Court Magistrate John T. Johnston heard oral argument in Montana Green Party v Stapleton, 6:18cv-87. The chief issue in the case is the unequal distribution requirement for the party petition. The Green Party successfully gathered 5,000 valid signatures, which is required. But the law also requires that the petition contain the valid signatures of between 55 and 150 signatures in each of thirty-four state house districts. Montana is the only state that ever had a distribution requirement for any type of statewide petition, in which the number of signatures in a district varies. A typical distribution requirement requires the same number of signatures from each district.
The Green Party was initially told by the Secretary of State in 2018 that it had met the distribution requirement. But then persons opposed to having the Green Party on the ballot in 2018 sued the Secretary of State, arguing that the petition did not really have enough valid signatures in a few of the districts. The state court then removed the Green Party from the 2018 ballot, even though the state had already conducted a primary for it in June 2018. The party then brought this federal lawsuit against the distribution requirement, and also against the March petition deadline.
The hearing lasted 90 minutes and went well.
On December 5, the Texas Secretary of State appealed the order in Dikeman v Hughs, the case over whether candidates seeking the nomination of a convention party must pay the same filing fee that primary candidates pay. The case is now in the Texas State Court of Appeals.
