On June 3, U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi issued a seven-page order in Kim v Hanlon, 3:24cv-1098, the case over New Jersey’s ballot design in primary elections. The order says the new law may not have cured all the problems with the old system. In the old system, some primary candidates were given a far more prominent place on the ballot. The order says the new law still makes it possible for some candidates to be given more favorable treatment. So the case will continue.
On June 4, the Ninth Circuit said it will rehear Moving Oxnard Forward v Ascension, 21-56295. The original panel had ruled that the Oxnard, California limits on how much a donor may contribute to a candidate for city office are too low, and also that the limits had been passed with the improper motive of injuring Aaron Starr, a member of the Libertarian Party who is now on the city council.
The rehearing will be in September, before eleven judges of the Ninth Circuit chosen randomly.
Karine Jean-Pierre, who served as President Biden’s press secretary during the second half of his term, has switched her registration from “Democratic” to “independent”, according to this news story.
On May 28, the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee passed SB 222. It moves the non-presidential primary from September to June. The bill decouples the petition deadline for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from the date of the primary. It says the petition deadline would be eleven weeks before the general election, which keeps it in August. Unfortunately, the bill doesn’t decouple the deadline for filing a declaration of candidacy, so if the bill becomes law, independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties would need to file the declaration in March, which. In the case of presidential candidates, that would violate Anderson v Celebrezze.
Texas holds a special U.S. House election on November 4, 2025, to fill the vacancy in the 18th district in Houston. The American Solidarity Party will ru Reyna Anderson, the party’s first candidate expected to be on the ballot in a Texas federal election. The filing deadline is September 3, so the full candidate list is not yet known.
No candidate in a Texas special election needs a petition, and if the candidate is a member of an unqualified party, the candidate may still have the appropriate party name on the ballot.
