On March 5, attorneys for the California Secretary of State notified the U.S. Supreme Court that they don’t intend to respond to the cert petition filed last month by the Independent Party. Of course if the Court asked them to, then they would. Independent Party v Padilla, 17-1200.
On March 5, the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters, the lead plaintiff in the state court case that challenged Pennsylvania’s U.S. House districts, filed this brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. Turzai v League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. The League again argues that the State Supreme Court had the authority to strike down the old U.S. House districts under the State Constitution. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On February 2, the Detroit voters who sued the Michigan Secretary of State over the timing of the next election for U.S. House, 13th district, filed this reply brief. Rhodes v Snyder, e.d., 2:17cv-14186. The state says the plaintiffs waited too long to file the lawsuit, but the reply brief says they only waited 19 days.
The issue is whether Michigan should fill the vacancy in the 13th U.S. House district in November 2018, or sometime earlier than that.
Two statewide initiatives are circulating in Utah on the subject of how parties nominate candidates. The initiative sponsored by “Count my Vote” eliminates caucuses, and provides that all candidates would obtain nominations by winning a primary. The initiative sponsored by “Keep My Voice” provides that all candidates must make a good showing at a party meeting before being allowed to get on the primary ballot. Current law is a mixture of the two.
Here is the web page for Keep My Voice.
Here is the web page for Count My Vote.
A recent poll shows that if both initiatives get on the ballot, the “Count my Vote” initiative would win, and the “Keep My Voice” initiative would lose.
On March 4, Italy held an election for both houses of the national parliament. See this story for an early analysis of the results. No party won a majority. However the top party is the Five Star Movement, which didn’t even exist until 2009.
