On November 21, the California Supreme Court issued a ruling in Patterson v Padilla, finding that the new law requiring presidential primary candidates to disclose their tax returns if they want to be on a presidential primary ballot violates the California Constitution. The opinion is unanimous.
Former Rhode Island Governor and U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee attended the recent meeting of the Libertarian Party national committee. Here is a news story from Rhode Island which interviewed him about that.
Mark Sanford withdrew from the Republican presidential race on November 13. Prior to that, the Michigan Secretary of State had determined that he is mentioned in news media and so had listed him on the 2020 Republican presidential primary ballot.
Even though the Michigan Secretary of State’s office is aware that Sanford withdrew, the state will not remove his name from the ballot unless he specifically asks the state to remove him by December 13. As of November 21, he has not bothered to communicate with the Michigan Secretary of State’s office about that. Sometimes presidential candidates who withdraw early in the process don’t exert the energy to contact states and ask them to remove their name.
Sanford’s name is not on the presidential primary ballot of any other state.
The North Carolina statutory deadline for candidates to file for the March 2020 primary is December 20, 2019. But on November 20, a state court enjoined that deadline, but only for U.S. House candidates. The court did not set a new deadlline.
The order affects five parties, all of which are nominating by primary in 2020: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Constitution, and Green. In 2020, the latter two parties are having their first primaries in history in this state.
The state court will hear arguments on December 2 on whether the new U.S. House districts are constitutional. If the court invalidates the districts, so that new districts must be drawn up quickly, there will be further orders about the deadline and perhaps the primary date itself. The case is Harper v Lewis, Wake Co. Superior Court, 19 CVS 012667. Here is the order. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On November 20, thirty-nine Democratic state legislators from New York sent a letter to the Commission on Public Funding. The letter asks the Commission to only recommend changes to the campaign finance laws.
The Commission has recently shown interest in making it more difficult for groups to qualify as political parties, which was not their mandate. The Commission’s recommendations will become law unless the legislature re-convenes in December 2019 and vetoes them.
