The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Bost v Illinois State Board of Elections, 24-568, on October 8, 2025. The issue is whether a candidate has standing to challenge a law that says postal absentee ballots need not be received in the elections office for several weeks after election day. The Seventh Circuit had ruled that the candidate doesn’t have standing.
The U.S. Solicitor General has filed this brief on the side of the candidate.
The Connecticut Mirror, an on-line non-partisan newspaper, has this op-ed by Jan Carpenter, condemning Connecticut’s petitioning rules for minor party and independent candidates. Carpenter was a petitioner last year for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Louisiana v Callais again on October 15, 2015. This is the case on Louisiana’s U.S. House district boundaries and how the federal Voting Rights Act, section 2, should be used in redistricting cases. Louisiana now has two U.S. House districts with Black majorities, out of seven seats.
The Court already heard oral arguments in this case on March 24, 2025, but instead of deciding the case, in June it asked to hear it again.
This Texas Tribune article says the Texas Republican Party passed a rule last year that authorizes keeping candidates off the Republican primary ballot for ideological reasons. Now, the state party seems to be starting to compile a list of “sins” that would implement the rule, especially for state legislative candidates.
Recently, the Michigan branch of the Constitution Party filed a lawsuit in the State Court of Claims to be allowed to change its name from the U.S. Taxpayers Party to the Constitution Party. Brandenburg v Brader, mv25-000052-mz.
The 1999 national convention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party voted to change the name of the party to the Constitution Party. All the states in which the U.S. Taxpayers Party was on the ballot allowed the party to change its name to the Constitution Party, except that Michigan did not. Also the California and Nevada affiliates of the party did not wish to change their name. In those two states, the party had never been called the U.S. Taxpayers Party (it was Independent American in Nevada, and American Independent in California).
Most states have no law on the subject of whether a party can change its name, and yet generally states do allow qualified parties to change their name. States that have allowed qualified parties to change their name in the last eighty years are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia.
States that have laws letting parties change their name are Minnesota, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. Also New York lets a party change its name in a brief window after it first qualifies.
