On March 5, the Arizona House passed HCR 2057. It requires initiatives to get signatures of 10% of the registered voters in each of the state’s fifteen counties. Currently the law has no distribution requirement. Here is the text.
The Ninth Circuit already ruled that statewide initiative cannot have county distribution requirements, in an Idaho case. Arizona is also in the Ninth Circuit. The Idaho case was Idaho Coalition United for Bears v Cenarrusa, 342 F.3d 1073.
In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the part of the McCain-Feingold Law that limits how much money parties can spend on their own nominees, if the party coordinates with those nominees. That case was FEC v Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee II, 533 U.S. 431.
Now the Republican National Senatorial Committee is making a strong effort to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that precedent. On December 4, 2024, it filed a cert petition in National Republican Senatorial Committee v FEC, 24-3051. It points out that in 2014, Congress amended the law to expand the ability of a party to accept much greater contributions if the money is for one of three purposes: (1) to pay for a headquarters; (2) to pay for legal fees; (3) to pay for national conventions.
Also it points out that in almost half the states, in state and local elections, state law allows parties to spend as much money as they wish on their own candidates, without apparent harm.
Amici briefs in support of the Republican filing have been filed by fourteen states, by the Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., by the Institute for Free Speech, by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, by the Republican Governors’ Association, and by the Georgia Republican Party. No Democratic Party-aligned groups have filed such amici, even though if the Republicans prevail, the decision would be helpful to the Democratic Party.
The current Republican case lost in the Sixth Circuit last year, because the Sixth Circuit felt it cannot possibly disregard the old 2001 Colorado decision.
On February 28, No Labels filed an amended Complaint in its lawsuit against a parody website that tried to make it appear that No Labels is a right-wing-leaning organization. The parody website was NoLabels.com. The actual No Labels website is NoLabels.org.
The case was first filed in 2023, and is still undergoing discovery. It is in federal court in Delaware, 1:23cv-01384. Here is the amended Complaint, which shows the old verbiage in the Complaint contrasted to the new language. The case is now named No Labels v Delco0222024, Inc.
On March 7, the Kansas Senate passed SCR 1611. It would amend the State Constitution to say that voters elect Supreme Court Justices. If it passes the House, then the voters would vote on the idea in August 2026.
Here is the text. It is vague and does not say whether the elections would be partisan or non-partisan.
On March 7, Utah State Senator Daniel Thatcher changed his registration from Republican to Forward. He was first elected to the Senate in 2010. See this story explaining why he switched.
Thatcher is the first state legislator who is a member of the Forward Party and not a member of any other party. He is up for re-election in 2026.
Utah voters have not elected a third party nominee to the legislature since 1916, when the Socialist Party won a seat.
