On February 9, U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood said she will issue an opinion in Libertarian Party of Illinois v State Board of Elections within 24 hours. This is the case, filed in 2012, that challenges the unique Illinois law that says newly-qualifying parties (but not old parties) must run a full slate of candidates.

For example, if a new party wants to petition for statewide office, it must run nominees for all the statewide offices. If it wants to run candidates for county executive office, it must run for all of them. Some of the offices require that the nominees be attorneys, so the law effectively requires a new party to have attorneys who are willing to be candidates. No other state has ever had a law like this Illinois law. The Illinois law has existed since 1933.

On February 3, David Librace, an independent candidate for president from West Helena, Arkansas, filed a federal lawsuit against the Arkansas Secretary of State. The lawsuit argues that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are not eligible to be on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The case is Librace v Martin, e.d., 4:16cv-57.

Several news stories on February 8 report that Michael Bloomberg himself recently said publicly that he is thinking of being an independent presidential candidate in 2016. This story is somewhat different than last month’s news stories, which were on based on the statements of other individuals close to Bloomberg. Here is one of the February 8 stories. Also see this story.