On September 27, a Michigan state trial court struck down two parts of a 2018 law that makes it more difficult to qualify statewide initiatives. The state constitution and the First Amendment were the basis. Initiative proponents cannot be required to use separate petitions for paid circulators and unpaid circulators. Also, the requirement that no more than 15% of the signatures can come from a single U.S. House district is void. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The Independent Voting Project, two former Governors, and two former U.S. Senators, have filed this amicus curiae brief in U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C., Circuit, in Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission. The amicus is on the side of the plaintiffs who filed the case, including the Libertarian Party and the Green Party.
This is the second amicus in that court in this case. The first was filed by Fairvote and COFOE.
The next Democratic presidential debate will be in Westerville, Ohio (near Columbus) on Tuesday, October 15. It will have 12 candidates on the same stage. They include the ten who debated in September, and Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer.
This is probably the largest number of presidential candidates on the same stage ever sponsored by a U.S. major political party. In 2015 Republicans held an eleven-candidate presidential debate on September 16 in Simi Valley. There was also a lesser debate for a few candidates who had not qualified for the main debate.
On September 24, a lawsuit was filed in North Carolina state court, arguing that the state’s U.S. House district boundaries violate the state constitution’s provision that elections shall be “free and equal.” The case is in Wake County Superior Court, the same court that invalidated the state’s legislative district boundaries last month under the state constitution. Harper v Lewis. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
Scotusblog has listed Libertarian National Committee v Federal Election Commission as a “cert petition of the week.” See the list here.
This is the case over whether the constitution permits the government to stop a party from receiving a large bequest from a deceased individual.
