On August 5, Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked the State Supreme Court to declare that one of the Democratic legislators who has fled the state to stop the redistricting bill is no longer a member of the legislature. In re Greg Abbott, 25-0674. Here is the Governor’s filing.
The case is weak because precedent makes clear the Governor doesn’t have standing to do this. Thanks to Jim Riley for the case number.
In order to see newer filings in the case, use this link.
Matthew Yglesias cuts through the rind and gets to the melon with this post stating that the best answer to the gerrymandering problem is proportional representation.
This month, the Georgia House Election Law Study Committee has been holding public hearings in various cities. Libertarian activist Sergio Ortega has spoken at each of these hearings, asking that the statewide petition for office other than president be reduced from approximately 75,000 signatures, to exactly 7,500 signatures. The existing law requires 7,500 for president and yet the ballot is not crowded. The legislators who have heard this idea seem receptive.
Before every presidential election, the two major parties try to influence the calendar of presidential primaries and caucuses for the upcoming election. The Democratic National Committee will meet August 25-27 in Minneapolis and will work on its hopes for the calendar. Of course, it is not easy for parties to influence the calendar, because government-administered presidential primary dates are set by state legislatures.
The No Labels Party is ballot-qualified in Arizona, and will have its first nominee for partisan office on an Arizona ballot in the special U.S. House election next month. That candidate is Richard Grayson. Grayson has this letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic, the largest newspaper in the state. Grayson criticizes the idea of changing the name of the party. The party’s state chairm Paul Johnson, has said he will ask the Secretary of State to change the name of the party to something else. Johnson hasn’t said what the new name would be.
