The U.S. Supreme Court heard two redistricting cases on Tuesday, December 8. The Texas case, Evenwel v Abbott, got the most press attention. But the Court also heard an Arizona case, Harris v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 14-232. Here is the transcript.

The Arizona case was won by the Independent Redistricting Commission last year in a 3-judge U.S. District Court. The case involves legislative redistricting. Some voters charged that the Commission impermissibly and deliberately put too many voters in the Republican-leaning districts, and too few voters in the Demoratic-leading districts.

An oddity in the case is that the Secretary of State Michelle Reagan, a Republican, is a Defendant, and yet she is on the side of the voters who filed the case. The former Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, is also a Republican, but he did not support the voters who filed the case. That resulted in the state’s former Attorney General defending the Independent Redistricting Commission when the case was in the lower court; yet in the U.S. Supreme Court the current Attorney General argued against the Commission.

This story explains how Democratic and Republican Party presidential candidates qualify to be considered in Utah caucuses. The story says the Republican Party charges $7,500 for candidates to compete. Democrats charge $2,500.

On December 9, the North Carolina Republican Party asked the State Board of Elections to list fourteen candidates in its presidential primary. See this story. The Democratic Party of North Carolina had already told the Board to list three candidates (Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley).

The Republican Party included Jim Gilmore and George Pataki, even though they did not file in Oklahoma or Louisiana.

The most crowded presidential primary ballots in North Carolina in the past had been nine Democrats in 1984, and eight Republicans in 1980.