J. C. Kantorowicz, a Montana Republican Party official, has this op-ed in the Great Falls Tribune, in defense of the party’s action in trying to get a closed primary for itself for public office. This op-ed is different from other recent Republican opinion pieces in Montana. It mentions the interesting incident when a former Green, Bob Kelleher, captured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2008.
The North Carolina legislature has appointed a conference committee to work on HB 373, the bill on primary dates. The current law says the presidential primary is in February and the primary for other office is in May. The legislature almost certainly will set a later date for the presidential primary, because the February date violates national party rules. The most difficult aspect of the bill to predict is whether the legislature will move the non-presidential primary from May to March.
The conference committee members can be seen using this link. There are nine Republicans and two Democrats on the committee. Senator Bob Rucho is on the committee. He had been the original champion of holding the presidential primary in February, a few years ago.
The Brennan Center for Justice, formed by former law clerks to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, has issued a policy statement that argues that political parties are valuable and to some extent have been over-regulated, especially in campaign finance law. Here is the link to a description of the paper. This is an important development. In the past the Brennan Center has been aligned with groups which fiercely favor restricting limits on donations to political parties, and also fiercely favor restricting political parties from spending money on their own candidates.
Congress has attached an amendment to the cromnibus spending bill that would ease restrictions on party assistance to their own candidates.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Rubin v Padilla, 15-135, at its October 9 conference. No news from that conference will be announced by the court until Tuesday, October 13. Monday, October 12, is a federal holiday.
This article says Texas state government has already spent $8,000,000 in legal costs, defending its 2013 photo ID law for voters at the polls, and the U.S. House and legislative districting plans enacted after the 2010 census. And neither issue is resolved yet, so costs will continue to climb.
