On April 20, the Nevada Senate Legislative Operations & Elections Committee amended SB 499 and passed it. As amended, the bill does not create a top-two system. Instead, it improves the petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties and non-presidential independent candidates. It moves the deadline for new parties from April to June, and moves the deadline for non-presidential independent candidates from February to June.

If the bill passes, the deadline for both types of petition will be June 3, 2016.

Jonathan Bernstein, a political scientist turned journalist and writer, recently tweeted many political scientists asking them what truths do they believe that the public just doesn’t believe? Here are the responses he received, set forth in an article he wrote for Bloomberg View.

Here is commentary by Julia Azari about the Bernstein article. The comments underneath Azari’s piece are especially worth reading.

On April 20, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro ruled that the Republican National Committee may not intervene in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner. However, the Republican National Committee will be permitted to submit an amicus curiae brief. If the Republican National Committee had been permitted to intervene in the lawsuit, that would have delayed the case.

The issue is the 2014 law that made it illegal for a group to circulate the party petition during odd years.