The Green Party national committee is inviting local Green Party committees who want to host the national convention to inform the national committee. The national committee will decide on the host city in August 2019.
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On April 26, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 5074. It requires all presidential electors to have signed a pledge, promising to vote in the electoral college for the candidate who received the most popular votes in the state. It is odd that the legislature passed this bill before the Washington State Supreme Court issues an opinion in Guerra v Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings, 95347-3. That is the lawsuit over the old law, which fines “faithless” presidential electors $1,000 if they don’t vote for the expected presidential candidate. The opinion could come out at any time.
Texas Representative Valoree Swanson (R-Spring) has introduced HB 4128. It would require political parties, and independent presidential candidates, to submit twice as many candidates for presidential elector as are assigned to Texas. Half would be designated as elector candidates, and the other half as alternate elector candidates. The bill also says that a week before the electors meet, each elector must sign an oath promising to vote for the presidential candidate who received the highest number of popular votes in Texas. If any elector then votes for someone else, he or she is deemed to have resigned and to be replaced by one of the alternate electors.
The bill has a hearing in the House Elections Committee on April 29, Monday.
In California, some qualified parties let independents vote in their presidential primaries, but others don’t. Assembly bill 681, by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, requires that county election officials send three notices to all voters in advance of the presidential primary, telling them which parties allow independents to vote in their primaries. At least one of the notices must be sent electronically. On April 24, the Assembly Appropriations Committee declined to pass the bill, and put it on the suspense file.
All four of the lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of at-large election of presidential electors have lost in U.S. District Court. All four are being appealed. All four had been filed in 2018 by David Boies, the well-known attorney who argued Bush v Gore for Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.
The California case, Rodriguez v Brown, lost on September 21,2018 in U.S. District Court, and is now being appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where it is case 18-56281. The final brief is due May 1.
The Massachusetts case, Lynn v Baker, lost in U.S. District Court on December 7, 2018. In the First Circuit it is case 18-2235.
The Texas case, League of United Latin American Citizens v Abbott, lost on February 25, 2019. In the Fifth Circuit it is case 19-50214.
The South Carolina case, Baten v McMaster, lost on March 8, 2019. In the Fourth Circuit it is case 19-1297.
These cases are very difficult to win, because many decades ago, similar cases had lost and one of those decisions was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.