On May 11, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht announced that he had changed his registration from Democratic to independent. See this story. Pennsylvania has partisan elections for its Supreme Court when a seat becomes vacant. It has retention elections for that office otherwise. Wecht was elected as the Democratic nominee in 2016 and has since won retention elections.
On May 11, Virginia asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the State Supreme Court order that had stopped the new U.S. House districts. Here is the filing. Scott v McDougle, 25A1240.
On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a procedural order in the old Alabama U.S. House districting case. that permits Alabama to use its brand new U.S. House districts. Here is the Order. Singleton v Allen, and Allen v Milligan. 25A1231 and 25-274.
Illinois has the second-highest petition requirement for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House, 5% of the last vote cast. Only Georgia is more severe. Nevertheless, four independent candidates are petitioning to get on the ballot in the 4th district in Chicago. That is because the Democratic nominee, Patty Garcia, is unpopular because of the way she got on the ballot. The incumbent, Jesus Garcia, told almost no one that he wasn’t running for re-election in the March primary, but he did tell Patty Garcia. So by the time the news spread, it was too late for other Democrats to petition for the primary ballot. Congressman Garcia was censured on the floor of the U.S. House for this behavior.
That motivated four Democrats to start independent petition drives to get on the November ballot. In addition, the Working Class Party is ballot-qualified in the Fourth District, and it is running a candidate. See this story.
Robin Epley, an opinion writer for the Sacramento Bee, here writes that the legislature ought to restore write-in space on the general election for congress and partisan state offices. She says that the Secretary of State agrees that there is no need for a constitutional amendment to restore write-ins.
