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.

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.

On September 26, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed A8228, which lets voters switch parties as late as February of an election year. Voters often want to switch parties in order to vote in a particular party’s primary. The New York presidential primary is in April 2020 and the primary for other office is in June.

New York is still one of the most restrictive states for voter switches, but the old law was much worse. It required voters who want to vote in the 2020 primary to have switched by October 2019.