The San Francisco Chronicle has this story about California SB 696, the bill to force the American Independent Party to change its name by October 29, 2019, or it will be removed from the ballot and all its members will be forcibly converted to independent voters. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for the link. As the story points out, Governor Gavin Newsom hasn’t acted yet on the bill.
On September 19, U.S. District Court Judge Morrison England issued an injunction against California’s new law that requires presidential primary candidates to reveal their income tax returns. See this story. Two presidential candidates had filed lawsuits against the law, President Trump and Rocky De La Fuente, De La Fuente was in the courtroom so naturally afterwards he spoke to the reporter who wrote the story.
UPDATE: see this story, which has a quote from the bill’s author, State Senator Mike McGuire. He says the judge’s action is “perplexing.”
A proposed Alaska initiative to adopt a top-four system, and also to impose new campaign finance restrictions, is the subject of a second lawsuit. The first lawsuit was filed last month, to overturn a decision by the state that the proposed initiative is invalid because it violates the single-subject rule. That case is pending.
On September 19, a new lawsuit was filed against the state, to stop the state’s decision that the initiative may be circulated while the single-subject lawsuit is pending. The new lawsuit depends on state law that says initiatives can’t circulate until their legality is resolved. See this story. Thanks to Scott Kohlhaas for the link.
New York holds partisan local elections on November 5, 2019. This story says that all Libertarians running in Erie County have been removed from the ballot because of paperwork errors. 2019 is the first election in which the Libertarian Party has been a ballot-qualified party in New York state, so the party doesn’t have the experience with this type of paperwork that the older qualified parties have.
The federal cases against the California tax returns-ballot law are being argued at 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 19, in Sacramento. Originally the hearing was to begin at 2 p.m., but the judge moved the time forward. One of the cases is Trump v Padilla, e.d., 2:19cv-1501.
