On January 31, a U.S. District Court issued a 12-page order in Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, e.d., 2:17cv-973. This is the lawsuit that says because California’s legislative districts have such huge populations (virtually 1,000,000 for State Senate, and 500,000 for Assembly), California is violating the U.S. Constitution. The order says that the original Complaint is deficient, because the plaintiffs only express general grievances, not grievances that show that they themselves are being harmed. But the order says the plaintiffs are free to file an amended complaint that might possibly solve this problem.

On February 1, a subcommittee of the Virginia House Privileges & Elections Committee defeated HB 1129 by 5-1. The bill would have imposed a top-two system on Virginia.

Actress Diane Neal says she will run for U.S. House in New York’s 19th district as an independent candidate. See this story. The story appears to say she will petition as an independent candidate, instead of seeking the nomination of one of New York’s eight qualified parties. If she only appears on the ballot as an independent, New York’s confusing ballot format will injure her campaign. That format will put her name on a far corner of the ballot, so that most voters probably won’t even see her name.

She could probably easily obtain the nomination of the ballot-qualified Reform Party. In 2016 another independent candidate for U.S. House in New York, Martin Babinec, got the Reform Party nomination, and he polled 24,595 votes on the Reform line. He also petitioned as an independent and got an additional 10,043 votes on his independent line. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for the link.