On May 23, a Nevada state court in Carson City issued this 12-page decision in Nevada Republican Party v State, 11-oc-00147. This is the lawsuit over how to interpret Nevada’s law governing special elections for U.S. House. Last week the court had ruled orally that parties may nominate by convention or party meeting. The Secretary of State had earlier ruled that parties may not nominate candidates in special elections for this office, and that any individual may run. The Republican Party had then sued to overturn that ruling, because there is no run-off and the Republican Party was afraid there would be multiple Republicans running and perhaps only a single Democrat.

The Secretary of State, and the Democratic Party, had already announced an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court even before this written opinion was issued. The written opinion points out that under the Secretary of State’s ruling, the Democratic and Republican Parties would have no ability to nominate candidates, but the state’s two qualified minor parties would have an ability to designate only one person to use that party’s label.

On May 23, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed HB 794. The bill moves the petition deadline to place a party on the ballot, but the improvement is slight. The deadline moves from March to early April. Also, the bill deletes the requirement that the petition must say that the signers are members. The bill does not lower the number of signatures for a new party, which will be 40,042 in 2012.

The old law was held unconstitutional last year, mostly because the deadline was so early. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, or strongly implied, on four occasions that petitions that early to place a new party on the ballot are unconstitutional. Courts in fifteen states have struck down petition deadlines (for new parties) earlier than May. There are no contrary reported decisions, except that an April petition deadline was upheld in North Dakota in 1988, but at the time North Dakota permitted partisan labels with the independent procedure and the independent candidate deadline was in September.

It is likely that the same three parties that sued Tennessee will file a new lawsuit. They are the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties.

Heidi Fuller recently filed this 25-page reply brief, in Fuller v Bowen, pending in the California Court of Appeals. The case concerns the California Constitution’s requirement that candidates for the legislature must have lived in their district at least one full year before the election. California officials have not enforced this requirement ever since 1976, even though no court has ever said the California Constitutional requirement violates the U.S. Constitution (except for the lower court in this lawsuit).

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Fuller had filed this lawsuit in 2010. The lower court had ruled that she does have standing, and that the courts have jurisdiction. But the decision also says that the California Constitution’s residency requirement violates the U.S. Constitution. The California legislature has filed an amicus curiae brief in the Appeals Court. That first half of the amicus can be read here; here is the second half.