This lengthy Politico story by David Siders says California Democrats have high hopes of winning the 49th and 39th U.S. House districts this year, because Republican incumbents Darrell Issa and Ed Royce aren’t running for re-election, and because Hillary Clinton carried both districts in November 2016. But, there are so many Democrats running in both districts, the two people who place first and second may be Republicans.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign says 1,500,000 signatures have been gathered to put him on the ballot as an independent candidate. The petition drive started January 5, 2018, and needed 300,000 signatures. The election is March 18. See this story.
Another candidate, Grigory Yavlinsky, says he has collected the needed 100,000 signatures to run. Russia requires 300,000 signatures for independent candidates, but 100,000 signatures for nominees of parties that don’t have any representatives in the national legislative body. Parties that do have such representatives do not need any signatures. See this story about Yavlinsky.
Two of New Hampshire’s Libertarian Party legislators have introduced HB 1239. It deletes the restriction that doesn’t permit anyone to sign a petition to put a party on the ballot, if that signer had already signed the same type of petition for some other party.
Out of the 100 U.S. Senators, currently 14 were elected with a number of votes that was less than 50% of the total vote cast for Senate. Dr. Eric Ostermeier calculates this is the largest number of such Senators since immediately after the 1996 election. See his analysis here.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky, 16-1435, on February 28. This is the case in which the lower courts upheld Minnesota’s ban on political clothing at the polls. Eight organizations have submitted amicus briefs in support of the people who challenged the ban. No amici briefs have been filed in defense of the law.
Anyone may read any of the briefs using this U.S. Supreme Court page. The eight organizations opposed to the ban are: the ACLU, the Southeast Legal Foundation, CATO Institute, the Goldwater Institute, the James Madison Center for Free Speech, the Justice & Freedom Fund, the ACRU, and the Center for Competitive Politics (which has since changed its name to the Free Speech Institute).
