According to this story, St. Pete Polls conducted a poll for the initiative that would impose a top-two system in Florida for state and local partisan office. The polls shows that the measure would be defeated.
The measure is not yet on the ballot but the petition drive is almost finished.
On October 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, ruled 2-1 that the subpoena issued by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight for President Trump’s tax returns is valid. Trump v Mazars USA, 19-5142. The decision is 66 pages and the dissent is 68 pages. The opinion is by Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee; it is also signed by Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee. The dissent is by Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
On October 10, the Georgia Libertarian Party filed a notice of appeal in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. This is the case over the Georgia ballot access laws for U.S. House, which require approximately 20,000 signatures for any independent, or the nominee of any party that didn’t poll as much as 20% for president in the entire U.S., or 20% for Governor of Georgia. No third party has ever completed this petition in the 76 years in which it has existed. No independent has complied with it since 1964. Yet the U.S. District Court last month still upheld it.
UPDATE: here is the party’s press release about the appeal.
Vermont requires presidential primary candidates to submit a petition of 1,000 signatures. The deadline is not until December 15, 2019. So far, three presidential primary candidate petitions have been checked: in the Republican primary, President Trump and Rocky De La Fuente; in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders. See the list here.
Law Professor Vikram David Amar has this commentary on Verdict about California’s tax returns-ballot law, which was enjoined last month by a U.S. District Court. Amar says that now that he has read the opinion, he is more certain than ever that the California law is constitutional. He says that the U.S. Constitution lets states impose any barriers to presidential candidacies that they wish, because the states have complete control over how to choose presidential electors (unless the states discriminate on the basis of race, sex, class, or age).
That viewpoint ignores the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous other courts, have struck down state ballot access laws affecting presidential candidates. Amar only mentions one of them, Anderson v Celebrezze, and grudgingly admits that perhaps states do not have complete control over qualification deadlines.
But courts have also struck down presidential candidate ballot access laws that required too many signatures, or a county-based distribution requirement, or that required presidential candidates to have chosen their vice-presidential running mates when they start petitioning, or which required a loyalty oath, or a requirement that the presidential candidate not be a felon. They have also struck down laws that required the selection of presidential elector candidates early in the process, or which restricted who could circulate a presidential petition, or which completely banned independent candidacies, or which made the requirements more onerous in the middle of the petitioning season.
As a courtesy to Professor Amar, I posted a comment under his article eight hours ago, but the web page that hosts his article has not posted my comment yet.
