On December 12, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed A2047/S5974. The bills had passed the legislature on June 20. They make it legally impossible for a qualified party to change its name. Previously, newly-qualifying parties were permitted to change their names, and the law was silent about whether old parties could change their names. Here is the text. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
One may listen to the oral argument in Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Thurston at this link. It lasted 41 minutes. First the state argued for 19 minutes, then the Libertarian Party argued for 21 minutes. Finally there was a two-minute rebuttal by the state. Most of the discussion concerned the petition deadline, September of the year before the election.
In the U.S. District Court, where the petition was enjoined, the state presented an expert witness who said it would cost $55,000 to complete the 3% petition. In the Eighth Circuit oral argument, the state said a petition that costs $55,000 to complete is not “severe.”
U.S. District Court J. P. Boulee will hold an oral argument on January 7, 2020, at 2 p.m., in De La Fuente v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:19cv-5323. This is the lawsuit on whether De La Fuente’s name should be on the Georgia Republican presidential primary ballot. As things stand now, only President Donald Trump’s name is on that ballot. The Georgia election law lets state party leaders decide whose names should be on the ballot.
Here is De La Fuente’s brief, filed December 11. The state must respond by December 18.
On December 11, the Arkansas Supreme Court put a referendum on the 2020 ballot that the Secretary of State had rejected. Safe Surgery Act v Thurston, cv-19-641. The referendum had enough valid signatures, but the Secretary of State rejected it because the sponsoring group had not submitted affidavits from each paid petitioner before circulation started, saying that the circulator had not previously been convicted of an election law crime.
When the petition started to circulate, the law required such affidavits to be submitted when the petition was submitted. But the 2019 legislature had changed the law, to say that the affidavits had to be submitted before petitioning could start. The bill took effect immediately because the legislature had added an urgency clause, saying there is an emergency. But it didn’t provide any fact showing there was an emergency.
A majority of the justices ruled that the law’s emergency clause is invalid, because the legislature mentioned no fact explaining what the emergency is. Therefore, the act was not really in effect when the petition started to circulate, and therefore it couldn’t be enforced against this particular petition. Here is the decision in Safe Surgery Act v Thurston, cv-19-641. The vote was 4-3. Thanks to Whitfield Hyman for the link.
On December 11, several voters sued New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his failure so far to call a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 27th district. One of the plaintiffs is the chair of the New York Republican Party. The seat has been vacant since September and there is still no special election date. Langworthy v Cuomo, Monroe County Supreme Court. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
