As previously noted, on September 8, 2014, the Republican Party of Ravalli County, Montana, filed a federal lawsuit to obtain a closed primary for the Republican Party. A pre-trial conference in that case has been set for December 11. However, on January 10 the state Republican central committee will meet and vote on whether the state party should join the lawsuit. It’s somewhat likely the pre-trial conference will be postponed, to wait for the state party’s decision. The case is Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 6:14cv-58. The case is assigned to Judge Brian Morris, an Obama appointee and a former member of the Montana Supreme Court.

As the 113th Congress elected in 2012 fades into history, one observes that little attention was paid to election law bills.

HR 20, the bill for public funding for candidates for the U.S. House, gathered 160 co-sponsors, but they included only one Republican. Despite this impressive number of co-sponsors, the bill got almost no publicity and never had a hearing.

HR 5334, the bill to establish top-two elections for Congress throughout the United States, got virtually no publicity and no hearing. It was sponsored by John Delaney (D-Maryland) and had only two co-sponsors, Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and Derek Kilmer (D-Washington).

Chicago holds an election for city office, including the three citywide offices, in February 2015. The petition filing deadline is Monday, November 24. Citywide candidates need 12,500 valid signatures. See this story, which explains the difficulty of obtaining these signatures for candidates who are not backed by the Democratic Party organization. The elections are non-partisan but the Democratic Party still has a very large influence in the process.