On March 18, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed SB 25, which repeals the straight-ticket device. The only states that still have them are Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
Reply
All six of the Virgin Islands delegates to the Republican national convention have been ousted by the chair of the Territory’s Republican Party. The chair said they failed to accept their election in writing. See this story.
Among the nation’s biggest media, the New York Times has been almost unique in its disdain for the Libertarian Party. Most presidential election years, the newspaper doesn’t even mention the party or its presidential nominee. Even in 1987-1988, when for the first time the Libertarian Party recruited an ex-member of Congress as its presidential nominee, the paper ran no story about the Ron Paul candidacy. Earlier this year, when Gary Johnson declared for the Libertarian nomination on January 6, the New York Times was one of the few large newspapers that did not mention that news.
But, on March 22, the Times published a lengthy news story that contains a substantial amount of information about Johnson, and even a picture of him. See this story.
Probably one reason the Times has ignored the Libertarian Party in the past is that the party has never been ballot-qualified in New York or New Jersey.
On Monday, March 21, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Wittman v Personhuballah, 14-1504. The issue is Virginia’s U.S. House district boundaries. The legislature drew a plan in 2012 that was held to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander by a 3-judge U.S. District Court. Here is a description of the oral argument from Scotusblog. The Justices seem to have spent more time thinking and asking about who has standing in such cases, than on the issue of racial gerrymandering.
A “racial gerrymander” means packing so many members of a racial or ethnic minority into a handful of districts, that members of that group have very limited influence in other, neighboring districts.
Montana holds its presidential primary on June 7. The only names on the Democratic ballot will be Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. They were put on the ballot automatically because they are discussed in the news media. The only candidate who submitted a petition, Rocky De La Fuente, submitted 856 signatures to meet a requirement of 500. Any registered voter is eligible to sign; Montana doesn’t have registration by primary. But election officials said only 362 signatures are valid.
The Montana Republican presidential primary ballot will list Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump.
Another Democrat, Florida attorney Michael Steinberg, petitioned for the Montana Democratic Party primary, but he only got 480 raw signatures so he didn’t bother to submit them.