On April 4, the U.S. Supreme Court issued this unanimous opinion in Evenwel v Abbott, 14-940. The case had been filed by some Texas voters who argued that the U.S. Constitution requires that state legislative districts should be based on the number of eligible voters in each district, not the population. The Court rejected that idea, and said “one person, one vote” refers to the number of constituents in a district, not the numbr of eligible voters.

The decision does not settle the question of whether a state is free to use the number of eligible voters. The decision is by Justice Ruth Ginsburg.

South Dakota holds its presidential primaries on June 7. The only Democrats on the South Dakota ballot will be Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The only Republicans will be Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump. No other state has so few major party candidates on the presidential primary ballots. The major parties chose candidates that would be on the ballots automatically. There is an alternate petition route for other candidates, but no one used it.

On March 31, the Republican National Committee filed an amicus curiae brief in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner, the lawsuit challenging the 2014 law that made it illegal to collect signatures on a party petition during an odd year.

The Republican National Committee amicus says similar restrictions were upheld in other states, but none of their cited cases is on point. The Republican brief cites Green Party of Arkansas v Martin, but that was a case about how a party remains on the ballot, not on how it gets on. The brief cites Rogers v Corbett, a Pennsylvania case, but that was not about timing of petitioning; it was a challenge to the concept that Pennsylvania requires non-members of the party to help the party choose its nominees. The Republican brief cites Stone v Board of Elections, but that was about candidate petitions in non-partisan city elections, not petitions to create a new party. The Republicans cite Barr v Galvin, a Massachusetts case, but that was about whether a presidential candidate petition could use stand-ins. The Republican brief cites a 1988 Oklahoma case, Rainbow Coalition for Election Board, and that case did uphold a one-year period for collecting the party petition, but New Hampshire only allows seven months, not one year. Also Oklahoma let the group choose its own one-year petitioning window; New Hampshire does not.