Parliament Square is London’s most prestigious public gathering space. It adjoins the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Supreme Court Building, and executive offices. For many decades, only eleven statues have been placed in Parliament Square, all of men. But now the first statue depicting a woman has been added to the Square: a statue of Millicent Fawcett, a leading fighter for votes for women. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On April 18, the Utah Republican Party filed this request for rehearing in Utah Republican Party v Cox, 16-4091. The issue is the state law that forces the party to let candidates without substantial support at a party meeting petition onto the party’s primary ballot. The party is not opposed to having a primary, but it only wants candidates on its primary ballot with significant support at party endorsement meetings. The Tenth Circuit had upheld the law by a vote of 2-1.
On April 19, the Tenth Circuit asked the state to respond to the petition for rehearing. This is a good sign for the party. Generally when courts receive a request for rehearing, they do not ask the other side to respond, and typically then reject the rehearing request. The state’s response is due May 15.
The Progressive Magazine has this story about the many instances when local initiatives are being kept off ballots because of their content. The old rule for initiatives all across the nation is that if there is a constitutional infirmity with the idea proposed by the initiative, courts won’t consider that until after the initiative has passed, if it does pass. But now the trend is shifting, according to the story, to keeping them off the ballot before any popular vote is held.
On April 23, some U.S. citizens who formerly lived in Illinois, and who moved to Guam, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Segovia v U.S, 17-1463. Here is the cert petition.
Illinois law would have permitted them to continue voting by absentee ballot if they had moved to any foreign country, or to American Samoa. But they can’t vote any longer because they now live in one of the three above-listed U.S. territories.
The Seventh Circuit had ruled that they lack standing to sue.
On April 23, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp appointed an 18-person committee to study what kind of vote-counting machines Georgia ought to obtain. He included one representative from the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties. See this story. It is somewhat ironic that Kemp treated the Libertarian Party well relative to this matter, and yet is in court fighting to prevent the Libertarian Party from running candidates for U.S. House of Representatives.
