The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Friday, February 15, whether to hear either one or two campaign finance cases. One is Danielczyk v U.S., 12-579, which challenges the federal law that makes it a criminal offense for a corporation to make any campaign contribution to a federal candidate. The other is McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission, 12-536, which challenges a federal law that say that an individual who wishes to make campaign contributions to many federal candidates cannot give all such candidates a total that is greater than $46,200 in any two-year period. The plaintiff who wishes to give more than $46,200 is Shaun McCutcheon, a resident of Alabama who wishes to contribute to many Republican congressional candidates. Another plaintiff in his case is the Republican National Committee. The lower courts upheld the challenged federal campaign laws.

The Green Party and the Constitution Party sued Georgia over presidential ballot access on May 25, 2012. U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Story dismissed the case on July 17, ruling that Jenness v Fortson (the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that upheld a 5% petition) precludes the lawsuit from having any chance of success.

A week later, the two parties filed a request for reconsideration, pointing out that both the U.S. Supreme Court, and more explicitly the 11th circuit itself, had ruled that Jenness v Fortson doesn’t control presidential election ballot access. The request for reconsideration is now six months old, and Judge Story has neither denied it, or granted a rehearing. He has simply done nothing. Such slow movement in a reconsideration request is very unusual. However, this delay is bad for the public interest. If Judge Story would act on the request for reconsideration now, the Georgia legislature could take cognizance of the issue and perhaps deal with the problem.

On January 9, 2013, the Gary Johnson presidential campaign received another $121,755.77 in primary season matching funds from the Federal Election Commission. This is in addition to the December 19, 2012 payment of $202,026, and to amounts received earlier in 2012.

Therefore, the total amount of primary season matching funds that was received for the entire Johnson campaign now totals $632,016.75.