On April 6, some Republican voters in Tucson, Arizona, filed a federal lawsuit against that city’s hybrid system for choosing city councilmembers. Public Integrity Alliance Inc. v Tucson, 4:15cv-138. A hearing was held on Friday, May 8, and a decision is expected any day now.

Tucson, since 1929, holds partisan primaries for city council in odd years, within each ward. Candidates file based on which ward they live in, and the primary chooses a party nominee within each ward, for each party. But in the general election, candidates for each ward seat run at-large against each other. The plaintiffs point out that frequently, the general election produces winners who did not win in their own ward. The lawsuit argues that this violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court’s “one person, one vote” precedents.

Tucson is believed to be the only jurisdiction in the United States which uses a partisan hybrid system. The case is being expedited because the primary is in August 2015. Tucson has six wards, and city councilmembers have four-year terms. Three wards are voting in 2015.

On May 11, the Minnesota Senate passed SF 455, an omnibus election law bill. Last week the bill had been amended to set a one-year limit on the petition to become a ballot-qualified party. Current law lets petitioners take as long as they wish to finish the petition, but the bill says that once the petition begins to circulate, it must be completed within a year. The vote in the Senate was 39.28. Now it goes to the House.

The Minnesota party petition is already so difficult, it has existed since 1913 and never been used for a statewide party. It requires the signatuers of 5% of the last vote cast. It is never used because the independent candidate petitions are far easier, and they permit a partisan label instead of just the word “independent.” All new and minor parties that have appeared on the Minnesota ballot, for the entire history of government-printed ballots, have used the independent candidate petition method.

It is odd that the authors of the bill are going to the trouble to amend the petitioning period for such an obscure provision of election law. As long as the authors are thinking about this part of the law, it is unfortunate that they didn’t think to lower the number of signatures. Based on the 8th circuit precedent from 1980 McLain v Meier, a strong case could be made that the party petition is unconstitutional. McLain v Meier struck down North Dakota’s party petition, which then required 15,000 signatures (3.3% of the number of eligible signers at the time). The 8th circuit was not influenced by the fact that at the time, North Dakota independent candidate petitions only required 300 signatures for statewide office and permitted a partisan label other than just “independent.” Minnesota is also in the 8th circuit. Thanks to Jim Ivey for the news.