New North Carolina U.S. House District Boundaries Challenged in Federal Court

As reported earlier, last week the North Carolina legislature redrew the U.S. House district boundaries. On October 27, some voters who had already been challenging the old district boundaries filed an amended complaint to challenge the new districts as well. Here is the filing. Williams v Hall, m.d., 1:23cv-1057. The case is before a 3-judge panel consisting of Judges Thomas Schroeder, Allison Rushing, and Richard E. Myers.

Congressional Bill to Ban Members of Congress Who are Dual Citizens

Congressmember Randy Fine (R-Florida) has introduced HR 5817. It says no one may be elected to Congress who is citizen of both the United States and some other nation. Here is the text. It would be unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court decision U.S. Term Limits v Thornton. That decision said neither Congress nor any state may add to the qualifications listed in the U.S. Constitution.

Oregon Initiative for a Hybrid System of Nominations

An Oregon initiative called the “Voter Fairness Act” will begin to circulate soon. It would amend the State Constitution to say that there should be a system in which parties must either nominate by convention, or participate in a primary that is open to all voters. A party would decide 250 days before an election whether it wants to have nominees, but if it does, it can only nominate them by convention at its own expense. If it doesn’t want to do that, its candidates would run in a May primary in which candidates from all the non-convention parties would run. It would be up to the legislature to choose how many primary candidates would advance to the general election.

Here is the text, which is proposal 55.