NPR has this story, dated June 15, about Congressman Justin Amash.
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The Ninth Circuit has notified attorneys in Merritt v Padilla, 18-55457, that it would like to hold oral argument in October 2019 if the attorneys find that month acceptable. This case arose when the California Secretary of State deleted a few words in Paul Merritt’s ballot pamphlet statement, when Merritt was running for U.S. Senate in 2016. Merritt, who paid to have his statement published in the state voter pamphlet, said he is an independent candidate. The Secretary of State deleted those words. In California, independent candidates (except presidential independents) cannot have “independent” as a ballot label. Instead they must have “party preference: none.”
Furthermore, the Secretary of State did not even inform Merritt that his words had been censored. Merritt only found out when his county registrar of voters told him. Yet the U.S. District Court ruled in 2017 that the Secretary of State did not violate the First Amendment, so then Merritt appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee used a random drawing to determine which of the 20 Democratic presidential debaters would be in the June 26 debate, and which in the June 27 debate. With twenty debaters, it had been deemed impractical to include all 20 in the same event.
Michael Drucker has the list of which debaters are in each debate.
A U.S. District Court in Los Angeles has set various deadlines for Soltysik v Padilla, c.d. 2:15cv-7916. This is the case over California’s election law that lets some, but not all, candidates for Congress and partisan state office have party labels on the ballot. The plaintiff, a registered Socialist, was not permitted to have a label because the Socialist Party is not ballot-qualified in California.
Each side has a deadline in late summer 2020 for various filings, so the case can’t be decided in time for the 2020 primary, which is in March 2020.
On June 18, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (subcommittee on the Constitution) will hold a hearing on SJR 1, a proposed constitutional amendment for congressional term limits. Senator Ted Cruz is the bill’s sponsor, and he is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill has 14 co-sponsors. Thanks to Michael Drucker for this news.