On March 24, attorneys for the state of Wisconsin asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a 3-judge U.S. District Court that, last year, had ruled that Wisconsin legislative districts consist of an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The case is Gill v Whitford, 16-1161. Here is the brief of the state. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news. The voters who brought the case, and who won it in the court below, are Democrats.
The Nevada bill for a top-two system, SB 103, will not advance in this year’s legislative session. Senator Aaron Ford (D-Las Vegas), the Senate Majority Leader, does not support the bill.
On March 23, the Iowa Senate passed HF 516 by 26-21. The bill makes many election law changes, and one of the changes is that the bill eliminates the straight-ticket device. The bill already passed the House once, but it must get another vote in the House because the Senate made some changes unrelated to the device.
Committees in both houses of the Tennessee legislature will hear the bills to ease ballot access on March 28, Tuesday. The Senate State and Local Government Committee will hear SB 770, and the House Local Government Subcommittee will hear HB 662. The bills are identical and lower the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 33,816 signatures to 5,000.
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.
