On July 31, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the initiative to set up a nonpartisan redistricting commission should be on the ballot. All sides agreed that it had enough valid signatures, but the opponents charged that the initiative was a revision of the constitution, not just an amendment. Here is a link to the decision and the dissents. The decision is Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution v Secretary of State, 157925. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On July 31, the Pennsylvania Green Party submitted petitions for its nominees for all three statewide offices, and three legislative candidates. See this story. Assuming the petition is valid, this will be the first time since 2002 that the Green Party has been on in a gubernatorial election year.
The Charlotte Observer has this op-ed by Chris Anglin, the North Carolina candidate for State Supreme Court Justice whose ability to use a ballot label, “Republican”, is being threatened by the state legislature. Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.
Independent candidate Craig O’Dear has submitted 22,000 signatures to be on the Missouri ballot as an independent for U.S. Senate. The law requires 10,000. Assuming his petition is valid, he will be the first independent on the Missouri ballot for U.S. Senate since 1976.
Here is his web page. He is one of the candidates endorsed by the Centrist Project, which is now called Unite America. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.
On July 27, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed SB 3. This is the bill that says that even though judicial candidates have their party label on the ballot in November (even though there are no primaries and no party nominees), no one can have a label if he or she switched parties in the three months before the filing deadline.
Here is the veto message. It is expected that the legislature will override his veto. The Republican majority in the legislature passed this bill because without it, there will be two candidates labeled “Republican” on the November 2018 ballot for one State Supreme Court race, and only one with the label “Democrat”.
