In November 2014, Dean Corren was the Progressive Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor.  He was also nominated by the Democratic Party, and he received 36.1% of the general election vote.  Now the Attorney General, William Sorrell, has sued Corren, saying that an e-mail sent by the Vermont Democratic Party to its list of supporters, inviting recipients to attend a rally featuring U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Governor Peter Shumlin, and Corren, constitutes an illegal campaign contribution to Corren.  Shumlin and Sorrell are both Democrats.

The Attorney General wants Corren to repay $52,000 that he received in public funding, plus a fine of $20,000.  Corren already spent the public funding he received on his campaign.

On March 20, Corren sued the Attorney General in federal court, arguing that the repayment order is disproportionate, and alternatively that the Democratic Party’s e-mail is not a campaign contribution.  The federal case is Corren v Sorrell, 2:15cv-58.  Thanks to the Center for Competitive Elections for this news.  The case is assigned to Judge William K. Sessions, a Clinton appointee. Here is the complaint.

On March 24, the Arizona Senate tentatively passed HB 2608, which makes it more difficult for Libertarian candidates to get on the Libertarian Party primary ballot.  Current law says a member of a small qualified party that is not a new party needs signatures from one-half of 1% of the party’s members.  The bill says a statewide candidate needs the signatures of one-fourth of 1% of all the registered independents in the state, plus the number of members of that party.  U.S. House and legislative candidates will need one-half of 1% of that base.

The bill has already passed the House.  It has no effect on the Green Party, so far, because the Green Party is considered a new party for both 2016 and 2018, because it petitioned early this year.  Here is a news story about the bill.  Thanks to Rick Hasen and Thomas Jones for this news.

The bill is irrational.  The purpose of ballot access petitions is to keep ballots from being too crowded.  But the Libertarian Party ballot in Arizona is never crowded and virtually never has more than one candidate listed.  Assuming the bill becomes law, a Libertarian running for U.S. Senate in 2016 would need 2,987 signatures of registered Libertarians and/or registered independents.  Under current law, only 139 signatures are needed.  UPDATE:  here is another news story.

On March 25, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s current legislative redistricting plan is invalid.  Here is the decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v Alabama.  The decision is by Justice Stephen Breyer.  After the 2010 census, the legislature’s redistricting plan in 2011 included 8 State Senate districts with a Black majority, and 27 House districts with a Black majority (out of 35 State Senate districts and 105 House Districts).  The Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference sued, arguing that many of the Black-majority districts contained too many Black voters (many were over 70% Black).  The Black Caucus and Democratic Conference argued that a better plan would have spread them out somewhat so that Black voters would have had influence in a larger number of districts.

There are also other complicated aspects of the case, relating to Alabama’s policy of letting legislators from a particular county have decision-making power over county government for that particular county.  The groups that filed the lawsuit especially objected to the legislative redistricting plan for Jefferson County, in which the county was split into eleven different state house districts, giving each of those eleven house members power in Jefferson County government, even though many of them only represented a tiny slice of Jefferson County.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision also faults the lower court (which had upheld the districts) for denying standing to one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.  It is now somewhat likely that Alabama will hold legislative district elections in 2016.  Normally, Alabama elects all its state legislators, for both houses, to four-year terms in midterm years, and there are no legislative elections in presidential years.  UPDATE:  see this analysis of the decision by Rick Hasen.