On December 18, a statewide initiative petition was submitted to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. It would set up a non-partisan redistricting commission to draw U.S. House and state legislative district boundaries. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On December 15, the Texas Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit against the Secretary of State. Republican Party of Texas v Pablos, w.d., 1:17cv-1167. The party is unhappy because Congressman Blake Farenthold is not being permitted to withdraw his name from the Republican 2018 primary ballot. Texas law lets candidates withdraw from a primary by the filing deadline. The deadline was December 12, and Farenthold signed paperwork withdrawing from the race on December 14. The Republican Party received that paperwork on December 15, and told the Secretary of State, but the Secretary of State won’t process the withdrawal because it was late.
The party says the deadline is irrational, because the law doesn’t require the party to forward the list of its candidates until December 19 anyway. But the state responds by pointing out that when an incumbent withdraws by the deadline, then filing is re-opened for another week, and another week from December 15 is December 22. However, the state doesn’t need to mail the ballots to overseas absentee voters until January 20.
The party says it has a freedom of association right not to associate with candidates like Farenthold, especially since Farenthold doesn’t want to run. Farenthold is not a plaintiff in this lawsuit, but news reports say he doesn’t want to run. Here is the Complaint.
Here is a news story, which says that the Texas Republican Party is worried that if Farenthold’s name is not taken off the ballot, then he will win the primary. He represents the 27th district, which includes Corpus Christi.
Steven Fletcher, a member of the Manitoba legislature, has filed a lawsuit against a Manitoba law that makes it impossible for legislators to switch party caucuses, unless they first resign and then get re-elected to their own seat under the new party banner. See this story. No other Canadian province has such a law.
This story says that the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee expects to ask the Jill Stein for president campaign to turn over certain documents from the 2016 election. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
According to this story in the Orange County Register, California Democrats have high hopes of winning some U.S. House seats in Orange County, where four Republican incumbents might conceivably be vulnerable. However, there are 25 Democrats running in those four districts, and because of the top-two system, there is some possibility that in one or more districts, two Republicans might place first and second, because there are so many Democrats that they will split up the Democratic primary vote.
Most of the story concerns a discussion of what happens if there is a tie vote, but that subject is barely worth discussing, because the odds of a tie in a race in which hundreds of thousands of votes are cast is overwhelmingly unlikely.
