On August 20, U.S. District Court Judge John F. Kness, a Trump appointee, said in an order that he wants oral argument in Team Kennedy v Illinois State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:24cv-7027. This is the ballot access case filed last year by the Robert F. Kennedy Jr independent campaign, the independent campaign of U.S. House candidate Angel Oakley, and the Illinois Libertarian Party. The date of the oral argument hasn’t been set yet.
This article points out that candidates for New York City office who withdraw must repay part of their public funding. Therefore, that provides a strong incentive for candidates not to withdraw.
On August 5, Congressman Kevin Kiley, a Republican from California, introduced HB 4889. It outlaws mid-decade redistricting of U.S. House seats, except in cases when a court ordered such redistricting. So far the bill has no co-sponsors. It has been referred to the Judiciary Committee.
On August 21, the Second Circuit explained why it had refused injunctive relief to Jim Walden. He is an independent candidate for Mayor of New York City. Election officials had refused to let him choose “Independence” as his ballot label. State law says no party can have “Independence” or “Independent” as its name, or as part of its name. UPDATE: here is a Courthouse News Story about the decision. The article is unusual; Courthouse News Service stories don’t generally reach out to the losing side in a decision to ask for a reaaction.
Walden had sued, but lost in U.S. District Court. He had appealed, but on May 2, the Second Circuit agreed with the lower court and said he can’t use his preferred label.
At the time, the Second Circuit did not explain its reasoning, but said it would do so later. Now, it has explained. Here is the 49-page decision. On page 45 it explains the state interest in denying the label “Independence.” It says, “It could lead unaffiliated voters to mistakenly believe that this designation was intended to represent all unaffiliated/independent voters, rather than identify a specific political organization.” This is a very paternalistic sentence. Free speech is protected by the First Amendment, even though free speech often means that deceptive or confusing messages are allowed.
One could use the same reasoning to say that the state should outlaw any party from having “Democratic” in its name, because that might lead people to think that the Democratic Party was intended to represent all voters who believe in democracy.
The decision is by Judge Eunice C. Lee, a Biden appointee. It is also signed by Judges Gerald E. Lynch and Alison Nathan, Obama appointees.
The print edition of the New York Times of August 21 has a front-page story, “Democrats See Profound Loss in Registration”. It describes the declining share of voters who register as Democrats, in the period 2020-to the present. The story is basically accurate, but it fails to reveal that the trend has been in existence since 1992. Ballot Access News has documented this in the August 1, 2025 issue.
Also, oddly, the Times skipped Arkansas and Missouri, states which do ask about party affiliation on the voter registration form.
