Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann says he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the February 25 decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court that put Willie Williams on the March 8 presidential primary ballot. See this story.
Reply
The First Circuit includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island (as well as Puerto Rico). The First Circuit will soon decide whether New Hampshire violated the Constitution when it passed a law in 2014, making it illegal for the petition to create a new party to circulate in an odd year. The case is Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner.
On February 25, the ballot-qualified parties (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties) of the states in the First Circuit jointly filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party. The parties on the amicus brief are the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, the United Independent Party of Massachusetts, the Green Party of Maine, and the Green Party of Massachusetts. Also the Massachusetts Libertarian Party, which is not now ballot-qualified, is on the amicus.
On February 23, the Maine House defeated LD 742. It was a proposed state constitutional amendment to require that statewide initiatives would need signatures equal to 10% of the last gubernatorial vote in each of the two U.S. House districts. Currently law has no distribution requirement. The vote was 90-57 in favor, but it needed two-thirds. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for this news.
Professor Lee Drutman has this analysis on how the 2016 Republican presidential selection process would have worked if the party used Instant Runoff Voting in its primaries and caucuses. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
In August 2015, the Washington State Supreme Court fined the state $100,000 per day until the legislature funds education in a more equal manner. The problem is that wealthy districts have adequate funds for education, but less wealthy districts do not. Therefore, the state is not providing equal education in the public schools, which violates the State Constitution.
According to this story, the only progress toward reforming education funding in this year’s legislative session is a bill that authorizes a study of the problem. The story also says that the regular 2016 legislative session is only twenty days away from adjournment, and so far only one bill on any subject has passed the legislature this year.
Washington state has had a top-two system starting in 2008. Proponents of top-two systems constantly say that top-two systems produce legislators who work together better and are less partisan. The reason education is such a problem in Washington state is that the Democrats have a majority in the House, and Republicans in the State Senate. The two parties don’t agree, so it is very difficult to get a bill through the legislature. The mainstream press in California, the other top-two state, never mentions the evidence from Washington state that top-two systems by themselves do not create smooth government.
Political science research has generally found that the amount of partisanship and polarization in state legislatures is not related to what kind of primary that state uses.