On July 30, a Superior Court Judge in Orange County, California, set a trial date of March 17, 2004 for Moreno v City of Anaheim, 30-2012-579998. This is the lawsuit that argues that Anaheim’s at-large city elections violate the California Voting Rights Act. Anaheim has a population of 336,265, and is the largest city in California that still elects all of its city council members at-large with neither ranked choice voting, cumulative voting, or limited voting.

The lawsuit was filed in June 2012. It has been delayed while the city had been given extra time to decide whether to abandon at-large elections. The city had considered districts, but had then merely changed the system to retain at-large elections, but to set up districts which would be used for candidate qualification. In other words, districts would exist and one candidate from each district would be elected, but the elections would still be at-large. The city argued that was enough to moot the lawsuit, but the court disagreed and set the trial date.

On August 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Nader v Federal Election Commission, 12-5134. The opinion says Nader doesn’t have standing to complain that the FEC did not enforce the campaign finance laws in 2004. Specifically, Nader demonstrated that the people who challenged his ballot access in 2004 spent millions of dollars on that effort, and none of the people who spent that money ever reported it as a donation to the Democratic Party or the John Kerry presidential campaign. Although everyone agrees with Nader’s accusation, the FEC did nothing about the Nader complaint (although the FEC took several years to make the determination that it would do nothing) and now the D.C. Circuit says Nader lacks standing.

The D.C. Circuit implied that if Nader were running for president in the next election, then he would have standing. The opinion is only six pages long.

On July 30, Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed B20-0245.  This is the bill that repeals the restriction on out-of-district petitioners.  Now Congress has 30 days to either do nothing on this matter, or conceivably veto the measure.  The 30 days only runs while Congress is in session.  Assuming Congress makes no objection, the restriction will finally be removed.