On March 22, attorneys for Montana state government filed this brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 15A911. The issue is whether the Republican Party of Montana has a freedom of association right to avoid the June 7, 2016 open primary. The party complains that the open primary allows Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had asked for this filing, and is pondering whether to order that the June 2016 primary process be altered in some undetermined way.

All six of the Virgin Islands delegates to the Republican national convention have been ousted by the chair of the Territory’s Republican Party. The chair said they failed to accept their election in writing. See this story.

On Monday, March 21, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Wittman v Personhuballah, 14-1504. The issue is Virginia’s U.S. House district boundaries. The legislature drew a plan in 2012 that was held to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander by a 3-judge U.S. District Court. Here is a description of the oral argument from Scotusblog. The Justices seem to have spent more time thinking and asking about who has standing in such cases, than on the issue of racial gerrymandering.

A “racial gerrymander” means packing so many members of a racial or ethnic minority into a handful of districts, that members of that group have very limited influence in other, neighboring districts.