On March 28, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Benisek v Lamone, 17-333. Here is the 81-page transcript. The issue is the Maryland U.S. House redistricting plan adopted in 2011, which is perceived by virtually everyone as a gerrymander to help Democrats.
Here is the AP article describing the hearing.
The District of Columbia defines a qualified party as a group that polled at least 7,500 votes for one of the partisan districtwide offices, which are Mayor, Attorney General, Delegate to the U.S. House, Chair of the City Council, and Council-at-Large.
No Republican Party member filed to be on the June 19 Republican primary ballot. There were originally two Republicans who filed for Council-at-Large, but one withdrew and the other didn’t complete the filing process. However, write-ins are permitted in D.C. primaries, so it is possible a Republican candidate will win one of the nominations by write-in votes. But if no one does that, the Republican Party will lose its status as a qualified party in the District. There is no procedure for an unqualified party to regain its status, except by placing a nominee on the general election by petition and hoping that nominee polls 7,500 votes, so if the party does lose its status in November 2018, it won’t have its own primary in 2020, nor its own presidential primary.
Illinois held its primaries on March 20. As has been well-reported, Arthur Jones, a Neo-Nazi, won the Republican nomination for U.S. House, 3rd district. Unofficial tallies show he received 16,458 votes. No one was on the ballot against him, and no one filed as a write-in.
By contrast, the last time any Republican ran for U.S. House in the 3rd district, in 2014, there were 28,883 votes cast in the Republican primary for that seat. No Republican ran in 2016.
Republican Party leaders had asked voters to leave their primary ballot blank in that race.
Every election year, California has 100 legislative seats up for election (all 80 Assembly seats, and half of the 40 State Senate seats). In 2018, only 95 Republicans filed to be on the primary ballot to run for a legislative seat.
By contrast, in 1992, there were 217 Republicans who filed to be on the primary ballot for those 100 seats.
There will probably be some more Republicans who file as declared write-in candidates this year. The deadline for that is May 22.
On March 27, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker, an Obama appointee, ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires Florida to have objective standards to determine which ex-felons may regain their voting rights. Hand v Scott, n.d., 4:17cv-128. Here is the 22-page decision.
Currently, the Governor of Florida has unfettered discretion to restore voting rights for any ex-felon, but there are no rules for how the Governor makes decisions. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
