Alaska, like most states, requires that initiatives be a single subject. An initiative petition is circulating in Alaska to have a top-four election system with ranked choice voting in the general election (but not the primary). The same initiative also imposes campaign finance restrictions.
On October 28, a State Trial court ruled that the initiative is a single subject, “election law.” The state will ask the State Supreme Court to review that ruling. See this story.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Carney v Adams, 19-309, on Friday, November 8. This is the case in which the Third Circuit struck down a Delaware law that says on most state courts, all judges must be members of parties that have at least 5% of the registration. Effectively this means they must all be Republicans or Democrats. No other party in Delaware history has had 5% of the registration.
All state court judges in Delaware are appointed. There are no judicial elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t release news about the November 8 conference until November 12, at the earliest.
The New York Times is reporting that the state chair of the New York Democratic Party, Jay Jacobs, wants to change the definition of a qualified party from a group that got 50,000 votes for Governor, to one that got 250,000 votes. See this story.
Jacobs wants the Commission that is considering public funding to make the change. The legislature has given the Commission the power to change certain other election laws (the Commission’s changes would automatically become law if the legislature doesn’t veto the Commission’s work).
On October 25, the opponents of the California legislature’s size filed this brief in the Ninth Circuit. The case is Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, 18-17458. The case concerns the population of legislative districts, approximately 1,000,000 per State Senate district, and 500,000 per Assembly district. The people who filed this case argue that ordinary citizens don’t have an effective voice in state government because of the huge districts.
The main thrust of the brief is that the U.S. District Court should not have dismissed the case, because this type of case calls for a 3-judge U.S. District Court.
On October 28, a state court in North Carolina invalidated the state’s U.S. House districts. See this story. The primary may need to be postponed; it is set for March 3.
