The Brad Blog has this article about how California’s top-two “open primary” is working this year in the 26th U.S. House district. The piece is by Ernest A. Canning, who has degrees in Political Science and has been an attorney since 1977.
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On April 2, Heidi Fuller asked the California Supreme Court to hear Fuller v Bowen, the case that challenges the refusal of the California Secretary of State to enforce the California Constitutional qualification that says legislative candidates must have lived in the district for a year before filing to run for that office. Normally the California Supreme Court would have decided by this week whether to hear the case. But on May 23, the Court pushed back the date by which it will decide that to June 29.
The Superior Court had ruled that the California Constitution’s one-year residency requirement violates the U.S. Constitution, and therefore the California Constitutional provision should not be enforced. But the State Court of Appeals had, in a sense, reversed the Superior Court, and said it doesn’t matter whether the California Constitutional provision violates the U.S. Constitution, because in any event the Secretary of State has no authority to judge qualifications and must let anyone run for the legislature without investigating any of their personal characteristics.
The trouble with that theory is that it would let anyone run for the legislature, regardless of that person’s age and that person’s current residency. And the trouble with the Superior Court decision is that federal and state court decisions, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions, overwhelmingly and unanimously agree that one-year residency requirements for legislative candidates do not violate the U.S. Constitution.
On May 22, U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney held a status conference in Libertarian Party of Virginia and Darryl Bonner v Charles Judd, 3:12-cv-367. This is the lawsuit filed by the Libertarian Party of Virginia against that state’s ban on out-of-state circulators. All briefs on whether the law is unconstitutional are due June 21, and it is expected that a decision will come by early July. The case is in the Eastern District.
Judge Gibney is the same judge who was assigned to two earlier cases on this same issue, neither of which resolved the issue because in both of the other cases, the plaintiffs withdrew from the case before it was over. In the first of those earlier cases, filed by several Republican presidential primary candidates, Judge Gibney had said the law is almost certainly unconstitutional, but he had not granted injunctive relief because that case had been filed so close to the primary. The second of those earlier cases had been filed by a Democratic candidate for Congress, Bruce Shuttleworth, but he dropped his lawsuit after the Democratic Party of Virginia changed its mind and said he had enough valid signatures, regardless of whether signatures collected by a resident of the District of Columbia were included or not.
The Free Times from Columbia, South Carolina, has this very detailed explanation of this year’s ballot access problem in South Carolina, in which approximately 200 Republican and Democratic candidates for state and local office were kept off the June 12 primary ballot. This is the most detailed explanation known to have been published.
Talking Points Memo has obtained, via a state Freedom of Information Act, a chain of communications between Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and various Hawaii officials, over whether Bennett may obtain a copy of President Obama’s birth certificate. Here is the chain of e-mails. As one can read, Hawaii refused his request. Talking Points Memo does not say whether it used Hawaii’s Freedom of Information Act, or Arizona’s Freedom of Information Act, to get this exchange. Chances are it is the Arizona Freedom of Information Act. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.