The Montgomery News, located in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, has this lengthy editorial and editorial cartoon, providing information about the status of the pending lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s U.S. House district boundaries. The editorial cartoon has a precise map of the districts in southeastern Pennsylvania, something that is unusual in cartoons.
On December 7, the Florida prison authorities rescinded their ban on letting prisoners receive nine particular issues of The Militant, the weekly print newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party. See this article.
Warren Redlich was the Libertarian Party nominee for Governor of New York in 2010. He polled 48,386 votes, the best showing that party has ever polled for Governor of New York. If he had reached 50,000 votes, the party would have become ballot-qualified for the first time.
Redlich’s campaign was injured because shortly before election day, a pamphlet was widely distributed claiming he was a sexual predator who preyed on children. Redlich believed that Roger Stone, who was backing a rival party called the Anti-Prohibition Party, was the author of the pamphlet. The Anti-Prohibition Party polled 20,429 for its gubernatorial nominee, Kristin Davis. Redlich sued Stone for defamation.
On December 15, a Manhattan jury decided that the pamphlet was defamatory, but it ruled for Stone because it believed there was not enough evidence that Stone was responsible for the pamphlet. See this story. Thanks to John Sproul for this news. Here is another story.
On December 12, the North Carolina Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that it was unconstitutional for the state legislature to eliminate partisan primaries for judicial races. North Carolina Democratic Party v Berger, m.d., 1:17cv-1113.
In October 2017, the legislature passed SB 656, which eliminated primaries only in 2018 for judicial elections. Judicial elections in North Carolina are partisan elections. But the bill provides that every individual running for a judicial post will appear on the November ballot, with party labels, but there will not be party nominees. The Complaint alleges that this violates freedom of association for political parties.
The reason the Republican majority in the legislature eliminated primaries for 2018 for judicial office is that the legislature expects to consider redrawing the boundaries of various judicial districts in time for the 2018 election. But because the primary is in May, and filing begins in February, the legislature didn’t expect to have the new districts ready in time for the primary.
The case is assigned to Judge N. Carlton Tilley, a Reagan appointee. Thanks to Brian Irving for this news. UPDATE: here is the Democratic Party’s brief. A weakness in the brief is that it doesn’t discuss either New York State Board of Elections v Lopez-Torres, nor Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party. The former decision upheld a New York law that did not permit judicial candidates to directly petition for a place on the primary ballot. The latter one said that Washington state did not necessarily violate a party’s freedom of association by permitting party labels on the ballot even though there were no party nominees.
Steve Rose, politics columnist for the Kansas City Star, here analyzes a path to possible victory for Greg Orman, running for Governor in 2018 as an independent.
