Maine Governor Has Until Friday Night to Act on Presidential Ranked Choice Voting Bill

Posted on by September 5, 2019
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Maine Governor Janet Mills must decide whether to let ranked choice voting apply to the presidential primary and the presidential general election by midnight, Friday night, September 6. The bill is LD 1083. If the bill becomes law, Maine will be the first state in history to use ranked choice voting for a presidential election in November.

Mills is a Democrat, and generally Maine Democratic politicians support ranked choice voting. But she may be bothered by the complicated interplay of ranked choice voting in the Democratic presidential primary, and the fact that Democratic rules already provide proportional delegates to candidates who receive at least 15% of the popular vote.

California Bill to Disqualify American Independent Party is Amended to Give Party Even Less Time to Choose a New Name

Posted on by September 4, 2019
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On September 3, California Senate Bill 696 was amended to be even more severe. This is the bill that requires the American Independent Party to choose a new name that doesn’t include the words “independent” or “independence”. As amended, the bill requires the party to choose a new name by October 29, 2019, or it would be disqualified the following day. Here is the amended bill.

U.S. District Court Judge Says San Antonio is Free to Bar Petitioning on Certain Types of Government Property

Posted on by September 3, 2019
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On September 1, U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez, a Bush Jr. appointee, dismissed the lawsuit San Antonio Firefighters v City of San Antonio, w.d., 5:18cv-745. The case had been filed by the union because it was circulating an initiative petition and the city barred petitioners from the grounds of the city’s senior centers, and also barred them from most of the area around public libraries. The opinion says those areas are not traditional public fora. Here is the 26-page opinion.

Article Points out that New York State Courts Have Ruled that the State Constitution Protects Fusion

Posted on by September 3, 2019
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The Gothamist has this article by Ross Barkan, pointing out that New York state courts have ruled three times that the state constitution does not allow the state to outlaw fusion, unless the state constitution is changed. The decisions of the highest state court on that subject were in 1910, 1911, and 1973.

A commission in New York has been empowered by the legislature to implement public funding of campaigns for state office, and also to ban fusion. But of course the commission can’t ban fusion if the state constitution guarantees fusion.

Lower State Court in North Carolina Invalidates Legislative Districts as a Partisan Gerrymander

Posted on by September 3, 2019
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On September 3, a 3-judge Superior Court in Wake County, North Carolina, invalidated the state’s legislative districts as a partisan gerrymander. Common Cause v Lewis, 18cvs-14001. The court used the state constitution to invalidate the districts. Here is the opinion. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. It is possible the March 2020 primary will now be moved to a later date. UPDATE: Republican state legislators say they will not appeal this decision, and will work to create non-partisan districts.