The Montana Democratic Party challenge to the Green Party petition will be heard in a state trial court on Tuesday, April 24. See this story.
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On April 2, the Fourth Circuit issued this opinion in North Carolina Democratic Party v Berger, 18-1150. The North Carolina legislature last year cancelled primaries for 2018 partisan judicial elections, and said all candidates for judge would only run in November. The Democratic Party sued last year, and won an injunction in U.S. District Court early this year, saying the suspension of judicial primaries for statewide judicial races likely violated the U.S. Constitution. But on February 9, 2018, the Fourth Circuit stayed that order. The Fourth Circuit has now explained why it did so.
The Fourth Circuit feels that the state has an interest in consistency, and that because there were not going to be primaries for local judicial races, it would confuse the voters if there were primaries for statewide judicial elections. The vote for the April 2 opinion is 3-0, whereas on February 9 it had been 2-1. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, who changed her vote, explained in the April 2 opinion why she changed her mind. Back in February the only individuals defending the 2017 state law were state legislative leaders, but later, the state itself had associated itself with the arguments of the legislative leaders, and that made a difference to Judge Motz. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
According to this article, the oral argument in the Alaska Supreme Court on March 29 went well for the Democratic Party, which was defending its lower court win. The issue is whether parties have a freedom of association right to decide for themselves whether to let independent candidates run in their primaries. State of Alaska v Alaska Democratic Party.
On the evening of April 2, the Montana Democratic Party and others filed a state lawsuit against the Secretary of State, saying the Secretary of State erroneously determined that the Green Party petition had enough valid signatures. The complaint does not claim the party lacks at least 5,000 signatures. But the law also says that the party must have had approximately 135 signatures in each of one-third of the 100 state house districts, and that the party is short in four districts. See this story.
Ironically, if the petition is found to be invalid, the Green Party would have a strong claim that the March petition deadline for new parties is unconstitutionally early. Petition deadlines for new parties that are as early as March have been held unconstitutional in Alabama (1991), Alaska (1990), Arkansas (1977), Idaho (1984), Maine (1984), Maryland (1978), Massachusetts (1984), Nevada (1986), New Jersey (1997), New Mexico (2012), Pennsylvania (1984), South Dakota (2018), Tennessee (2010), and Wyoming (1984).
On April 2, Florida Professor Tim Canova announced that he is changing his registration from Democratic to independent, and that he will be an independent candidate for U.S. House in Florida’s 23rd district. He will run against incumbent Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
In the August 2016 Democratic primary for the same office, Canova polled 43.2% of the vote against Wasserman-Schultz. In the general election in the same district in 2016, Wasserman-Schultz received 56.7% of the vote, her Republican opponent received 40.5%, and two independents received the remaining 2.8%.