On June 6, the Federal Election Commission filed this in the U.S. Supreme Court in National Republican Senatorial Committee v FEC, 24-621.  The FEC says it supports the Democratic Party’s desire to intervene in the case, which is about the federal law that prohibits parties from spending much money in support of their own nominees if the party and the candidate are coordinating with each other.

Both the Republican Party and the FEC agree that the limits on such party spending violate the First Amendment.  But if the U.S. Supreme Court is to take the case, there needs to be some organization that will defend the federal limits.  The Democratic Party wants to defend the limits, so letting the Democrats into the case at this late point would facilitate that.

It is somewhat strange that the Democratic Party wants to defend a law that injures political parties.

On June 5, a New Jersey state trial court let a voter switch back to the Democratic Party after the legal deadline.  The voter persuaded the judge that election officials had mistakenly switched his enrollment to the Constitution Party without his knowledge.  See this story.

On June 5, the First Circuit held oral arguments on whether to grant Maine state representative Laurel D. Libby injunctive relief that would enable her to speak in the State House of Representatives. The U.S. Supreme Court already granted her injunctive relief letting her vote on the floor of the State House. But the U.S. Supreme Court did not consider the issue of her ability to speak. Libby v Fecteau, 36-1385.

The oral argument lasted for one hour and twelve minutes. Listen to it at this link.

In April the First Circuit had denied injunctive relief to Libby on both voting and speaking. In April the three judges were Gustavo Gelpi, William J. Kayatta, and Lara Montecalvo. But on June 5, there was a different panel, including only one judge who had been on the case in April, Judge Montecalvo. The two other judges on June 5 were Seth Aframe and Camille Velez-Rive.