According to this story, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will meet with any U.S. presidential candidate who visits Israel and requests a meeting with him. Donald Trump will be meeting Netanyahu in Israel on December 28.
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On December 9, the Sixth Circuit issued a three-page order in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 15-4270. The party had asked the Sixth Circuit for an injunction, putting it on the ballot for the 2016 election. The grounds (in the Sixth Circuit) are that the 2013 ballot access law violates the State Constitution.
The Sixth Circuit says it has no jurisdiction in this case now. The U.S. District Court still hasn’t ruled on another argument in the case, that Ohio applied its campaign finance laws in 2014 in a discriminatory fashion to block ballot access. The Sixth Circuit order says the party must wait for the U.S. District Court to rule.
On November 30, the Working Families Party set up a webpage to let anyone who visits that web page vote on whether the WFP should endorse Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or Martin O’Malley. The voting was to continue for a week.
On December 8, the party announced the results. Sanders easily won, with 87% of the total vote. The WFP will now do what it can to help Sanders become the Democratic nominee. This is the first time the WFP has made a presidential endorsement before the Democratic Party chose a nominee. See this New York Times story. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
On December 7, a state trial court in Arizona upheld the November 2015 Tucson election returns for city council. See this story. Republican nominees in two districts had argued they should be seated. Tucson has partisan elections, in which nominations are made inside each ward, but then the nominees run citywide. The Ninth Circuit had invalidated that system last month, but the new ruling says despite the Ninth Circuit ruling, that is no reason to invalidate the election. A rehearing is pending in the Ninth Circuit.
On December 8, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Evenwel v Abbott, 14-940. Here is a summary of the argument from Scotusblog. The issue is whether legislative districts should have equal numbers of residents, or equal numbers of eligible voters. The tradition in the U.S. for the last 50 years has been equal numbers of residents, including children and adults not permitted to register to vote, such as aliens.
Here is the transcript of the oral argument. Thanks to Rick Hasen for that link.