On March 2, the Virginia Senate passed HB 736, which moves the congressional and local office primary from June to August. The bill must now return to the House, because the Senate made an amendment. The bill also moves the petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from June to August.
Jon Huntsman has been disinvited from a lavish fundraiser for the Republican National Committe. According to this story, the reason is that Huntsman said publicly a few days ago that the nation needs a new political party. Thanks to Rick Hasen for thee link.
Scotusblog is the nation’s leading blog for U.S. Supreme Court news. For many years, it has reviewed all cert petitions, and then it chooses “petitions to watch”. This watch list consists of cases that Scotusblog believes have a fair chance to be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 2 Scotusblog identified Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger as the “petition of the day”, and the blog will keep the case on its “petitions to watch” list.
On March 2, the Tennessee Attorney General’s office filed a notice, indicating that he expects to appeal the ballot access case to the 6th circuit. The case is Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett. On February 3, the U.S. District Court had held the state’s ballot access law for minor parties to be unconstitutional.
On March 1, a Missouri state trial court struck down a portion of the law on statewide initiatives in Missouri. This story explains that the law requires a financial impact statement for any initiative to be prepared by the State Auditor. But, the court said, the Missouri Constitution limits the powers of the State Auditor to specified duties, and preparing an impact statement for initiatives isn’t one of those duties.
