An independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, Jonathan Jenkins, is attempting to get on the 2018 ballot. He needs 47,183 valid signatures by June 21, and he says he expects to succeed. See this story. He is being helped by a new corporation called the “Indie Party”, but there is no attempt to place any new party on the ballot.
No statewide petition for either an independent candidate, or a new party, has succeeded in Texas since 2010, when the Green Party petitioned.
On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a five-page unsigned opinion in the Maryland partisan gerrymandering case, Benisek v Lamone, 17-333. The case had been filed to challenge the partisan gerrymander in Maryland, and focused on one particular district, the Sixth, which goes all the way from the state’s western border with West Virginia, to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The evidence showed the boundaries had been drawn to help the Democratic Party wrest the seat from the Republican Party, which did occur in 2012.
The Court said the lower court did not err by failing to issue an injunction against the districts, because any ruling changing the districts would have been too close to the 2016 election, and that such important changes should not be made too soon before an election. This case is still alive and the lower courts will now consider the constitutionality of the Maryland districts.
On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Wisconsin voters who filed a lawsuit against the state’s partisan gerrymander for legislature lack standing. But instead of dismissing the case, the Court sent it back to the lower court, to see if the plaintiffs could amend their lawsuit and try again. Gill v Whitford, 16-1161.
The decision says “The right to vote is individual and personal in nature”, quoting from a 1964 opinion, Reynolds v Sims, which was one of the “one person, one vote” decisions. The Gill decision says that the Wisconsin plaintiffs argued that, as Democrats, they are injured by the partisan legislative gerrymander. But the Gill decision says that voters can only sue over their own individual legal interest. They can only complain about the particular district that each one of them inhabits; they can’t complain about the partisan outcome for the entire state. They will be given a chance to show how they are injured, relative to the outcome in their own district.
The Court’s statement that the right to vote is individual and personal in nature should strength pending and future ballot access cases, especially in states in which write-ins are banned.
On June 12, the North Carolina legislature passed SB 655. It moves the primary in presidential years, for all office, from May to March. Because the petition deadline for independent candidates is automatically related to the primary date, this means the independent petition deadline will be in February of presidential election years. This is unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze, and also under a 1980 U.S. District Court decision from North Carolina, Greaves v State Board of Elections. That decision said April is too early, so obviously February is too early. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for this news.
On June 15, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper vetoed SB 486. Among many other provisions, it prevents parties that nominate by convention from nominating anyone who had earlier that year run in a party primary for the same office. North Carolina already bans primary candidates from becoming independent candidates, but the law doesn’t apply to nominations by convention parties. Generally, newly-qualifying parties in North Carolina nominate by convention, not primary.
