California U.S. House Redistricting Bill Is Now in Print

Posted on by August 18, 2025
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On August 18, the California Assembly amended ACA 8 to become a vehicle for redistricting U.S. House districts. The original bill did not relate to redistricting. Read it here. It does not take effect unless other states also redistrict in the next few years. It also endorses a U.S. Constitutional amendment to outlaw partisan redistricting. It has a hearing on August 19 in the Assembly Elections Committee, at 10:30 a.m.

The Assembly Elections Committee will also hear SB 280, which authorizes a special election on November 4, 2025, for voters to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment, assuming the legislature has passed it first. And the Committee will hold an informational hearing on AB 604, which has the new proposed U.S. House districts.

City Journal Article on the Growing Power of the Working Families Party of New York

Posted on by August 18, 2025
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City Journal has this article about the growing political power of the Working Families Party of New York. The piece is by Joseph Burns. City Journal leans to the right, and is published by the Manhattan Institute. But setting aside the political slant of the article, it is a useful piece for what it explains about the New York state campaign finance laws, which give significant advantages to ballot-qualified parties relative to unqualified parties and independent candidates.

The Working Families Party is sympathetic to unqualified parties, but it has not used its political power to fight the restrictive ballot access laws passed in 2019 and 2020 in New York.

How Utah Handled the Merger of Two Ballot-Qualified Parties

Posted on by August 18, 2025
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In July, the Forward Party in Utah and the United Utah Party, both of which were qualified parties, merged with each other, with the new name to be “Forward Party”. This is the first time two ballot-qualified parties in any state have merged since 1944, when the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the Minnesota Democratic Party merged.

Minnesota has never had registration by party, but Utah, by contrast, does have registration by party. The Utah elections office decided to automatically switch all the United Utah members to Foward Party members. No notification to each voter was made. The state assumed the party itself would inform its members of the change.

State registration numbers for active voters as of August 11 show 2,193 Forward Party members, and zero United Utah members. By contrast, before the merger, there had been 252 Forward members and 2,217 United Utah members.

No Labels Endorses Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City

Posted on by August 17, 2025
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Recently No Labels announced that it endorses Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City. This is believed to be the first time that No Labels has endorsed any candidates running outside the two major parties. Cuomo, although a registered Democrat, is running as an independent candidate.

Cuomo is responsible for making New York state ballot access for statewide candidates far more difficult. It is ironic that No Labels, which would have had a terrible time getting a presidential nominee on the ballot in New York in 2024 if they had actually run someone, has endorsed a ballot access opponent.

No Labels would have had a bad time with New York ballot access because New York has no procedure for a group to get on the ballot until after it has chosen a nominee. No Labels also would have had to contend with New York’s May petition deadline, and the short petitioning window.