On February 1, a U.S. District Court ruled that Florida must have uniform, non-arbitrary rules on how ex-felons may regain their ability to register to vote.  The decision noted that during the four years when Governor Charlie Crist was Governor, 154,000 ex-felons had their voting rights restored.  But in the first three years of Rick Scott’s governorship, only 3,000 had voting rights restored.

The state appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, and it also asked the District Court to stay its own order.  On April 4, the U.S. District Court Judge refused to stay his own order, which had told the state to write uniform rules by April 26.  Now the state is asking the Eleventh Circuit to stay the order.  If the Eleventh Circuit takes no action by April 26, then the state will be in contempt if it hasn’t drafted any uniform rules.  The case is James Hand v Rick Scott.  In the Eleventh Circuit the case number is 18-11388.

On April 12, two judges of the Tenth Circuit stayed the U.S. District Court’s February 2018 order in Semple v Williams, 18-1123. The district court had enjoined a 2016 law that says initiatives must be signed by 2% of the registered voters in each of the 35 State Senate districts. The district court said that violates “one person, one vote” because the population of a State Senate district is not necessarily proportional to the number of registered voters in each State Senate district.

The order of the Tenth Circuit is only two pages and does not explain why the Tenth Circuit stayed the lower court order. The Tenth Circuit order is signed by Judges Carolyn McHugh and Nancy Moritz. Both are appointees of President Obama.

The lawsuit had been filed by proponents of an initiative that would have established universal health care in Colorado.

Joel Fox, an analyst of California politics, writes here that Steve Poizner may very well be elected Insurance Commissioner of California this year. Poizner is an independent. If he wins, it would be the first time someone who wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican has been elected to partisan statewide office in California since 1914.

As the column notes, the key advantage for Poizner is that no Republican filed to run. His opponents are two Democrats and one Peace & Freedom member.