On March 22, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed HB 204, which provides for presidential primaries in future presidential election years. This probably means that in 2020, Utah will hold presidential primaries for one or several qualified minor parties, something that has never occurred before. Utah held presidential primaries in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but only for the Republican and Democratic Parties.
On March 24, U.S. District Court Judge John Z. Lee, an Obama appointee, struck down a 2013 Illinois campaign finance law that makes it illegal for any medical cannibis cultivation center or dispensary organization to make a campaign contribution to a candidate for state or local office. Ball v Madigan, n.d., 1:15cv-10441. The decision is 22 pages.
The only two plaintiffs are Claire Ball, the Libertarian nominee for state Comptroller in 2016, and Scott Schluter, the Libertarian nominee for State House, 117th district, in 2016. Schluter was not on the ballot because of Illinois severe ballot access requirements for candidates for the legislature. Thanks to Benjamin Barr for this news.
The write-in votes were counted on Friday, March 23, in the Pennsylvania special election, 197th district in Philadelphia. Democrat Emilio Vazquez received 1,970; the runner-up, Cheri Honkala, was credited with 282 write-ins. See this story.
On March 24, the Connecticut House Government Administration & Elections Committee passed HB 5434. This is the National Popular Vote bill. The vote was 9-8.
The Maine Supreme Court will hear arguments over the initiative that passed last year, setting up Ranked-Choice Voting. Opponents of RCV argue that the initiative violates the State Constitution. This web page of the Maine state court system has links to all the briefs. The Attorney General and the Secretary of State argue that the State Constitution must be changed before RCV can be implemented. The legislature would be free to put proposed amendments to the Constitution on the November 2017 ballot, if it wished to.
The case is OJ-17-1, In the Matter of Request for Opinion of the Justices. It is always possible the court will hear oral arguments and then decide that it doesn’t have jurisdiction to decide anything just now.
