Blake Sasha, an activist with Voter Choice Arizona, has this op-ed in Arizona Capitol Times, criticizing top-two systems because they sharply limit voter choices in general elections. Sasha is a supporter of top-five systems, and a Republican.
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On February 19, the city council of Fort Collins, Colorado, voted to ban write-in candidates in city elections.
In 1912, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that all ballots must allow write-ins. Littlejohn v People ex rel Desch, 121 P.159, held unconstitutional a Colorado law that banned write-ins in school director elections. The court said, “Every qualified elector shall have an equal right to cast a ballot for the person of his own selection, and that no act shall be done by any power, civil or military, to prevent it. Such is the mandate and spirit of the Constitution (meaning state constitution), and it thereby vests in the elector a constitutional right of which he cannot lawfully be deprived by any governmental power.”
Iowa Representative Derek Wulf (R-Hudson) has introduced HF 353. It bars candidates from primaries if they have been members of another party during the preceding year. Here is the text. It also bars voters from voting in primaries if they have been members of another party during the preceding thirty days, and it attempts to extend this rule to party caucuses.
In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut said that if parties wish to nominate a non-member, the First Amendment freedom of association clause protects their ability to do that. Courts in Colorado and New Mexico have struck down duration of party membership laws, in situations in which the party didn’t want the restriction.
On February 19, the state of Tennessee filed this amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit in Casa, Inc. v Trump, 25-1153. This is one of the lawsuits challenging President Trump’s order on citizenship. Tennessee has filed in support of the Trump action, and says that the state is being harmed by illegal immigration, which is not exactly the same issue.
On February 19, the Ninth Circuit refused to stay the order of the U.S. District Court of Washington state, in State of Washington v Donald Trump, 25-807. This is the case in which President Trump’s executive order on citizenship had been enjoined. The three judges who handled the matter in the Ninth Circuit are William Canby, a Carter appointee; Milan D. Smith, a Bush Jr. appointee; and Danielle J. Forrest, a Trump appointee.
The order is very brief, and says that Trump has not shown there is an emergency. Judge Forrest wrote separately to expand on that point.
It is somewhat likely that Trump will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay.