Courthouse News Service has this article about the January 29 decision of the California Court of Appeals, upholding the top-two system. The case is Rubin v Padilla.
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According to this Washington Post story, on January 30, three Virginia Democratic voters filed a federal lawsuit that says the Democratic Party broke the law when it held a nominating convention for the special election for Delegate, district 74. The story says that the party charged $1,500 for any candidate who wanted to be nominated. The story also says the convention improperly excluded voters from part of the district.
The case does not seem to be registered on Pacer yet, so it is difficult to understand the story completely. Check back in a few days. I hope to have seen the Complaint by then and will be able to more fully describe it. UPDATE: the case is Lambert v Democratic Party of Virginia, e.d., 3:15cv-61. See Jim Riley’s comment below for more about this interesting case.
On January 14, the Montana State Senate Administration Committee tabled SB 13, a bill introduced by Senator Sue Malek (D-Missoula.) The bill would have provided that if printed literature by a candidate or political committee mentions how another candidate voted on a bill, that literature must list every vote that candidate took on that same bill. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.
The New Hampshire House Election Law Committee will hear HB 665 on Thursday, February 5, at 10 a.m. The location will be Room 308 of the Legislative Office Building. The bill lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Protectmarriage.com-Yes on 8 v Padilla, 14-434, on February 20. There is a significant chance the court will hear the case, because after California officials had initially declined to file a response brief, the Court asked for a state response. UPDATE: the conference has been moved to February 27.
The issue is whether the contributors to the 2008 initiative in California concerning same-sex marriage deserve privacy, given evidence that when the names of donors were made public, they were subject to harassment. The proponents of the initiative, which banned same-sex marriage, say in many cases their contributors were treated as badly as members of the Socialist Workers Party had been in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In 1982 the U.S. Supreme Court had unanimously ruled in Brown v Socialist Workers ’74 Campaign Committee that the Socialist Workers Party is entitled to an exemption from campaign reporting, because the evidence showed that individuals revealed to be supporters of the party suffered harassment both from government agencies and private employers and individuals.
In this case, the U.S. District Court had ruled that the California initiative proponents were not entitled to privacy, and the Ninth Circuit had ruled the case moot. The initiative supporters acknowledge that the list of contributors has already been made public, but so far their residence addresses have not been made public, and therefore the case is not moot. The initiative supporters also hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will say they should have been entitled to privacy. Thanks to Thomas Jones for pointing out the pending U.S. Supreme Court conference in this case.