J. David Lashar, a high-ranking official in the Maryland Health Department, will seek the Libertarian nomination for U.S. House, 3rd district, according to this story.
In 2016, the Libertarian Party did not contest this seat. The 2016 vote was: Incumbent John P. Sarbanes, Democrat, 214,640; Republican Mark Plaster, Republican, 115,048; Green Nnabu Eze, 9,461.
The Washington state bills to move the presidential primary from May to March, HB 1469 and SB 5333, failed to meet legislative deadlines, so neither can pass this year. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
Another Washington state bill that failed for the same reason is SB 6191, which would have provided that presidential electors who don’t vote for the candidate who got the most popular votes in their state are automatically displaced.
On February 21, Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania legislature again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the new U.S. House district boundaries that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently created. Here is the brief. It is called Turzai v League of Women Voters, just like the last similar request. The last request had been made on January 26 and had been denied on February 5. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On February 21, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol struck down South Dakota ballot access laws for newly-qualifying parties. Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs, 4:15cv-4111. The plaintiffs were the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. The case had been filed in 2015. Here is the 16-page opinion.
The opinion says that the March 27 petition deadline is too early, especially given winter weather in South Dakota. It also says the 2.5% (of the last gubernatorial vote) is also too high, given the historical record of few minor parties qualifying. The Reform Party did not qualify in South Dakota in 1996; the Green Party has never qualified; the Natural Law Party never qualified; the New Alliance Party never qualified.
The state defended the March 27 deadline by saying that deadline is necessary to give new parties their own primary in June. But the opinion says there is no state interest in requiring new or small parties to nominate by primary. It says, “In our two-party dominant system, the Republican and Democratic Parties often have more than one candidate for each political office and thus need to run in a primary election where the registered voters of each party must choose their candidate. But Defendants have not explained why this rationale should apply to new political parties.” UPDATE: here is a news story. FURTHER UPDATE: here is a news story from the Argus Leader.
The Texas Tribune, an on-line news source, has this article by Mark Miller about Texas ballot access problems.
