On May 7, all the fulltime judges of the Third Circuit voted on Delaware’s request for a rehearing in Adams v Delaware Governor, 18-1045.  Nine judges agreed with the original decision, but four wanted to grant rehearing en banc.

The original decision said that Delaware cannot continue to enforce a law that says all state court judges must be members of parties that have at least 5% of the state registration.  The case had been filed by an independent voter who is also an attorney, and who said he hopes to become a state court judge.  Delaware judges are appointed, not elected, so even though he won the case, his chances of being appointed are probably not very high.

The four judges who voted to rehear the case are:  Kent A. Jordan and Thomas Hardiman (Bush Jr. appointees); Cheryl Ann Krause (an Obama appointee); and Stephanos Bibas (a Trump appointee).

On May 23, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that presidential electors who do not vote for the presidential candidate who got the most popular votes in their state may be fined $1,000.  Guerra v Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings, 95347-3.  Here is the decision.

The majority rests its opinion mostly on the U.S. Supreme Court case, Ray v Blair.  But that case only settled that political parties may keep presidential elector candidates off their primary ballots if those candidates won’t sign a pledge to be “faithful.”  The case was from Alabama, and at the time Alabama presidential elector candidates were nominated in a party primary.  No state any longer lets presidential elector candidates run in primaries.

The dissent, by Justice Steven Gonzalez, says, “There is a meaningful difference between the power to appoint and the power to control.”  The majority decision does not grapple with his point.  The decision isn’t too surprising, given the tenor of the oral argument when the case was argued  earlier this year.

Still pending is the Colorado case, in the Tenth Circuit, where the oral argument seemed to indicate that two of the three judges believe that presidential electors have the freedom to vote for whom they please.  Baca v Griswold, 18-1173.  Thanks to Derek Muller for the link.  Here is his analysis of the opinion, from his blog, “Excess of Democracy.”

The California Assembly Elections Committee will hear SB 27 on Wednesday, June 19.  This is the bill to keep presidential candidates off the presidential primary ballot unless they submit tax returns for the last five years.  It has already passed the State Senate.  Thanks to Ronald Paulinski for this news.

The California bill is the only presidential tax returns ballot access bill that has many any headway during May so far.  No state has passed such a bill yet, even though there have been bills on this subject in many states starting in 2017.