On June 26, late in the day, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Lovell refused to issue an injunction against the Montana law that makes it a crime for political parties to endorse candidates in judicial races. The case is Sanders County Republican Central Committee v Bullock, cv12-46-H.

The judge did reject the state’s argument that the party doesn’t have standing to challenge the ban. The state had argued that since the party has no bylaw authorizing such endorsements, therefore the lawsuit should be dismissed. But Judge Lovell said if the party did pass such a bylaw, that alone would be a criminal act, and that the party is not required to pass a bylaw before suing.

The constitutionality of the ban is still not formally settled, and a further hearing will be held on September 25. In the meantime, both sides are likely to collect evidence about the effect of party endorsements in judicial races. That will probably involve research from states with non-partisan judicial elections in which there is no ban on party endorsements.

On June 26, former New Mexico State Senator Joseph Carraro filed a petition to be on the November ballot as an independent candidate for State Senate. He will be the only opponent to the Republican nominee. See this story. Carraro served in the legislature 1984-1988 and 1992-2008.

Carraro will benefit by the fact that this year, for the first time in many decades, New Mexico’s general election ballot has no straight-ticket device.

This November, current or former state legislators who were previously major party nominees are running for the legislature as independents in at least four states. Those former or current state legislators are Kyle Johansen in Alaska, Kathleen Curry in Colorado, Nancy Argenziano in Florida, and Joseph Carraro in New Mexico. Johansen and Carraro were formerly Republicans; Curry and Argenziano were formerly Democrats.

A former California legislator, Anthony Adams, ran for Congress this year, but because he didn’t place first or second in the June 5 primary, he can’t run in November. If California didn’t use a top-two system, he probably would be on the November ballot as an independent candidate.

On June 26, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted ruled that Gregory Jolivette cannot be an independent candidate for the legislature, even though he submitted enough valid signatures to run for the 51st State House seat. See this story.

Ohio does not have registration by party, but election officials do keep a record of which party’s primary ballot a voter chooses. Ohio law is vague about who can be an independent candidate. Section 3513.04 only bans people who were defeated in a party primary from being an independent candidate. But by tradition, Ohio election officials have expanded that ban, and regularly block people on the basis that they have recently voted in a party primary, or recently were on a political party committee.

As the story reveals, the Secretary of State used personal details about Jolivette’s political activity to justify preventing him from being an independent candidate. Jolivette may sue, although the precedents on this issue in Ohio state court are not very favorable.