This year, the California legislature raised gasoline taxes, and opponents are planning to circulate a referendum petition to block the increase. On September 22, a California Superior Court Judge in Sacramento rejected the Attorney General’s title. See this story. The Attorney General’s title focused on the loss of the revenue for transportation projects, instead of mentioning that the issue is whether to repeal or retain the increased tax.

On September 22, Maine Representative Martin Grohman held a press conference in his district to say that he is changing his registration from Democratic to independent. Here is a video clip of that press conference. The Maine House now has 74 Democrats, 70 Republicans, and six independents.

Grohman is in his second term. He did not say if he will run for re-election in 2018. A question asked if he might be an independent candidate for Governor in 2018. He said he is not ruling anything out.

On September 21, the Ohio State Court of Appeals issued a 35-page opinion in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16AP-496. The Ohio Constitution says, “All nominations for elective state, district, county and municipal offices shall be made at direct primary elections or by petition as provided by law.” The Ohio Libertarian Party had filed a lawsuit against the 2013 ballot access law, which says that newly-qualifying parties do not have a primary. The party had argued that the 2013 ballot access law violates the Ohio Constitution, which seemed to mandate that all parties nominate by primary.

The Ohio State Court of Appeals interpreted that part of the Ohio Constitution to mean that the legislature is free to abolish primaries for any parties, and instead to provide that parties without a primary would nominate by petition. This conclusion seems to contradict the historical record, which shows that this part of the Ohio Constitution was added over 100 years ago to stop parties (or at least the major parties) from nominating by convention. The decision has no discussion of the history of this part of the Ohio Constitution.

The decision also rejects the party’s argument that equal protection is violated by forcing new parties to nominate without a primary. Ohio voter registration forms do not ask the applicant to choose a party. Therefore, the only government-provided “membership lists” for qualified parties come from the list of voters who chose a particular party’s primary ballot. The major parties, which always have primaries, obtain a useful list of their adherents by obtaining the list of voters who chose that party’s primary ballot. A newly-qualifying party, which has no primary, doesn’t obtain such a list. But the Court ruled that the disparity does not violate equal protection.

As a result of this decision, there is now no state constitution in any of the 50 states that mandates primaries for all qualified parties. Ohio had seemed to be the only such state. The Oklahoma Constitution gives the legislature the authority to mandate primaries for all qualified parties, but does not say the legislature must do that.

One reason the opinion is so long is that it takes the first fifteen pages to set forth the complicated history of ballot access litigation in Ohio, especially Libertarian Party cases, for the period 2004 to the present.