On December 4, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Utah government to file a brief in opposition to the Utah Republican Party. The response is due January 3, 2019. The issue is whether the First Amendment protects a party’s right to decide for itself how to nominate candidates.
On November 29, the Montana Secretary of State filed this response brief in Montana Green Party v Stapleton, 6:18cv-87. Like the state’s opening brief, the new brief does not mention any election law precedents. The issues in the case are the unequal distribution requirement for the party petition, and the early deadline. There are dozens of precedents on both these issues, but the state doesn’t discuss any of them.
On December 3, a Wisconsin bill was introduced to change the presidential primary date from the first Tuesday in April to the second Tuesday in March. The bill is SB 885.
The Associated Press has written this story about the December 3 opinion of the Ninth Circuit concerning party labels for candidates who are members of unqualified parties.
UPDATE: here is a longer story from the San Francisco Chronicle. FURTHER UPDATE: here is a story in the Metropolitican News-Enterprise, published in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times still hasn’t covered this story, even though Soltysik lives in Los Angeles.
Missouri Representative Dan Stacy (R-Blue Springs) has introduced two bills to convert Missouri elections to ranked-choice systems. HB 27 applies to federal and state office. HB 28 applies to local office. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.
