On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court released opinions in four cases, but did not release the opinions in the gerrymander cases, which are from Maryland and North Carolina. There will be more opinions on Wednesday, June 26.
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On June 20, the Alaska legislature adjourned, although there may be a short special session soon dealing only with financial matters. The regular session did not pass any election law bills. Bills that failed to pass included HB 90, to ease the definition of “qualified party”, and HB 150, which would have set up all-postal balloting.
The Associated Press has this story about the various states in which Republican-majority legislatures this year have passed bills making it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot.
The story does not mention California, where Democrats are about to pass a bill that would also make it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot. That bill is AB 1451.
Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The New York legislature adjourned on June 21. Among election law bills that did not pass are:
1. Bills to keep presidential candidates off the ballot if they don’t release their income tax returns
2. Bills to remove party logos from the ballot
3. A bill to prevent parties from using the word “Independence” in its name
4. A bill to make it more difficult for parties to obtain and keep qualified status
5. Bills to make it possible for candidates to remove themselves from the general election ballot. The authors of these bills are motivated by the problem that qualified minor parties frequently nominate candidates who then lose a major party primary, so then those candidates don’t want to run in November under their minor party label, but under existing law it is tough for them to remove themselves from that November ballot.
Last year, some Arizona voters filed a federal case, arguing that the U.S. Constitution requires that Arizona voters be permitted to choose a U.S. Senator to replace John McCain earlier than November 2020. Tedards v Ducey, 2:18cv-4241. Even though John McCain died in August 25, 2018, Arizona law does not require a special election to fill his seat until November 2020. The U.S. District Court has not ruled, even though the case was fully briefed months ago. The plaintiffs want a special election this year.
On June 20, 2019, the plaintiffs asked the Ninth Circuit to instruct the U.S. District Court to issue an opinion quickly, or to take the case itself. However, on June 21, the clerk of the Ninth Circuit rejected that filing, unless the plaintiffs file a brief explaining why the case should be taken away from the U.S. District Court before the District Court has ruled. In the Ninth Circuit, the case is 19-16237.