On February 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. heard oral argument in Tuana v USA, 13-5272. The issue is whether the 14th amendment confers U.S. citizenship on persons born in American Samoa. The judges are Janice Rogers Brown, Laurence H. Silberman, and David B. Sentelle. Here is a Mother Jones article about the case. Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.
Professor J. David Gillespie has this op-ed in The State, daily newspaper for Columbia, South Carolina. The op-ed notes how few legislative races have both a Republican and a Democrat on the general election ballot, and points out that minor parties perform a useful service for voters by giving them more choices.
On February 23, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Clayton v Niska, 14-443. The plaintiff had challenged a Minnesota law that says, “A candidate may not knowingly make a false claim stating or implying that a candidate or ballot question has the support or endorsement of a major political party or party unit or of an organization.” A Minnesota State Appeals Court had upheld the law, and the Minnesota Supreme Court had refused to hear an appeal.
The plaintiff, Bonn Clayton, had been fined $500 because his website implied that the Minnesota Republican PArty had endorsed a particular candidate for judge, when actually the party had decided not to make any endorsements. Here is a copy of Clayton’s cert petition, giving his side of the dispute.
Election Data Services has estimated how many seats each state will gain or lose in its U.S. House delegation after the 2020 census. See this article about the findings in Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel introduced SB 2613 last month, but because it failed to advance, it is now dead. It would have provided that voter registration cards ask voters to choose a party, or independent status.
McDaniel ran in the Republican primary last year for U.S. Senate. He narrowly lost the runoff primary to incumbent Republican Senator Thad Cochran. McDaniel challenged the results in court, arguing that many people who voted in the Republican runoff primary were Democrats who had voted in the Democratic primary a few weeks earlier. However, he was unable to prove that there were enough such voters to have changed the outcome.
