The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on March 29 whether to hear Lepak v City of Irving, Texas, 12-777. The issue is whether the old “one person, one vote” precedents mean that districts should be relatively equal in population, or relatively equal in number of eligible voters. This issue doesn’t normally make a big difference, but it does make a big difference in jurisdictions with a relatively large number of non-citizen residents. The New York Times here covers this case and seems to feel there is a good likelihood the Court will accept the case.

The case started when federal courts required the City of Irving to stop using at-large elections for city council. After the city complied and districts were drawn, on the basis of population, some residents of Irving noted that some of the districts have twice as many registered voters as other districts. They sued to overthrown the equal population districts in favor of districts that have equal numbers of eligible voters. However, the city’s equal-population plan was upheld in U.S. District Court and in the Fifth Circuit.

The Connecticut Joint Government Administration & Election Committee has introduced SB 1146, which says, “No candidate who is not enrolled as a member of a party may be endorsed by such party.” The bill’s intent is to abolish fusion, but it goes further, and says no one can be nominated by a party if he or she is not a member of that party.

The fact that the Committee itself has introduced this bill suggests that the leadership of the Democratic majority in the legislature has determined to eliminate fusion. However, the bill is poorly drafted, and would seem to violate what the U.S. Supreme Court said, in dicta, in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208, in 1986. The decision says, on page 215, “Were the State to…provide that only Party members might be selected as the Party’s chosen nominees for public office, such a prohibition of potential association with nonmembers would clearly infringe upon the rights of the Party’s members under the First Amendment to organize with like-minded citizens in support of common political goals.”

Here is a description of the U.S. Supreme Court argument of March 18 in Arizona v Inter Tribal Council, the case over whether states can require extra questions and extra documents to supplement the federal voter registration form. UPDATE: here is the transcript of the oral argument; thanks to Rick Hasen for that.