The bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to make the District of Columbia a state, HR 51, now has 218 co-sponsors in addition to its lead sponsor, Eleanor Holmes Norton. The voting membership of the U.S. House (which does not include Delegate Norton) is 435. However, two of the co-sponsors are from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and they can’t vote, so the bill still is two short of having a majority of the voting members. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not one of the co-sponsors.

On August 23, John Schmitz, an independent candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis, filed this reply brief in Schmitz v Marion County Board of Elections. The issue is whether he had enough valid signatures. That depends on whether signatures of registered voters should be counted if the voter had moved within the city, and showed his or her new residence address on the petition, whereas the registration record still lists the old address.

A decision is expected soon, due to the fact that the election is November 5, 2019.

Earlier this year, the Third Circuit struck down Delaware’s law, requiring most types of state judges to be members of one of the state’s two largest political parties. Delaware is in the process of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that decision. The state has won approval to delay its cert petition until September 4, 2019. The case is now called John C. Carney v James R. Adams, 19A57.