On April 7, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded James v Federal Election Commission, 12-683, back to the U.S. District Court and told that lower court to re-do its opinion, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court McCutcheon opinion. James v FEC is a challenge to the amount of money that an individual can donate to all candidates for federal office. Virginia James was willing to accept the total ceiling on all contributions that an individual can make to federal candidates, political parties, and PAC’s put together, but she wanted to distribute the contributions so that her total contributions to all candidates exceeded the limit for all candidates combined.

It is obvious that she will win her case, given the more far-reaching decision last week in McCutcheon v FEC.

On April 6, Nick Troiano formally announced that he will be an independent candidate for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s 10th district. The announcement was no surprise, because he had earlier announced that he was exploring running. Troiano was the youth director for Americans Elect in 2010-2012. He is 25 years old, and says his congressional campaign this year has already raised $30,000. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.

According to this story, the Vermont legislature has again amended SB 86. The original bill, which passed the Senate last year, moved the independent deadline from June to August. The House Committee revised the bill to move the deadline in the opposite direction, from June to May. But the newspaper story seems to indicate the bill will not move the deadline at all.

Vermont is tied with Illinois for having the nation’s earliest independent presidential petition deadline. Moving it even earlier would certainly have been unconstitutional.