The Ohio Libertarian Party engaged in a long court battle, in federal court, with attorneys for the Ohio Republican Party and the Governor John Kasich re-election campaign during 2014. The issue was whether the Libertarian Party’s gubernatorial candidate should appear on the Libertarian Party primary ballot and thereby gain a place on the general election ballot. The Libertarian did not prevail on the ballot access issue.

However, the attorneys for the Libertarian candidate and the Libertarian Party did receive $42,500 in attorneys’ fees, which were awarded on May 1, 2017. This is because they did prevail on the issue of whether the party should be considered a qualified party during 2014, and on the issue of the out-of-state ban for petitioners. Those parts of the case had been won in late 2013 and early 2014.

In addition, on June 12, the federal court also awarded sanctions of $1,500 to the attorneys for the Libertarian Party, against the attorneys for the Republican Party. This is because the court determined that the Republican attorneys had filed subpoenas against the Libertarian Party attorneys that were not designed for a legitimate purpose, but “to badger or intimidate” the Libertarian Party attorneys. See this story.

UPDATE: see this story.

The Virginia State Board of Elections web page has returns for the Republican and Democratic primaries of June 14, 2017. In the Republican gubernatorial primary, With 93.4% of the precincts reporting, the two leading contenders are very close. Ed Gillespie, a former national chairman of the Republican Party, has 146,521 votes; Corey A. Stewart has 144,933. These numbers, of course, will continue to change. Stewart is known for being all-out in support of President Donald Trump.

California Democratic legislators have amended one of the budget bills to alter procedures for recall petitions. SB 96 was introduced on January 11 and was strictly a budget bill. It passed the Senate on May 11. But on June 9, it was amended to include some provisions changing the law relative to recall elections. It says that signers may remove their names during the 30 days after a recall petition is submitted, and also extends the time for a recall to appear on the ballot, relative to when the petitions were submitted.

There is currently a recall underway against Democratic State Senator Josh Newman. Recall proponents have already submitted 31,000 signatures. If the bill is signed into law, it goes into effect immediately and would alter the rules for this recall. Provisions that allow signers to remove their names on petitions after it is too late for proponents to gather more signatures are fundamentally unfair. Proponents of petitions can never know if their petition will succeed, if signers can remove their names after the petition has been submitted. No one can predict how many signatures will be removed.

Extending the time between submission of a recall petition, and the date of the recall election, would have a different effect on the Newman petition. It would make it more likely that a recall would be held at the time of the regular June 2018 primary, instead of earlier as a stand-alone election.