Geoff Pallay has this summary of redistricting news from seventeen states at Ballot News. The update was released on February 10, so is very up-to-date.
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The Illinois Green Party is holding its own presidential primary on the internet, for members of the party. People are permitted to join the party on the same day they vote in the party’s presidential primary. Here is a link to the process.
On February 10, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1413, which removes write-in space from general election ballots for Congress and state partisan office. California is the only state that has ever had write-ins, but which doesn’t have them any longer, except for Louisiana. States that formerly did not have write-in space on general election ballots, but added such space during the last 45 years, are Florida, Indiana, Delaware, and Ohio.
California is now one of only six states that have no write-in space on the November ballot for Congress.
On February 10, U.S. House member Joe Barton of Texas filed a brief with the 3-judge U.S. District Court in San Antonio that is hearing the redistricting lawsuit, advocating that the San Antonio court wait until the 3-judge U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. decides whether the legislature’s plan violates the Voting Rights Act.
Barton acknowledged that would delay redistricting quite a bit. His brief says, “Recognizing the interest of the statewide parties to conduct conventions, it is possible to bifurcate the presidential primary, if the Court so chooses. If the Court chooses to bifurcate the presidential primary, the other primaries could be held as late as the end of August. The presidential primary does not have a run-off election and programming andpreparing a single statewide ballot is relatively simple.” Thanks to TexasRedistricting blog for this news.
If Barton’s plan were to be adopted, one wonders what would happen to independent non-presidential candidate petition procedures. Texas says those petitions cannot be circulated until after the primary. Presumably, an independent candidate for office other than President would, under the Barton plan, not be allowed to start circulating until August, yet the state needs to print its ballots in early September.
Here is the map of Barton’s district as it was drawn after the 2000 census. It includes southeast Dallas and then a long swath of territory extending into rural areas that is barely attached to the Dallas part of the district. Barton was re-elected in 2010 with almost 70% of the vote.
Back in November 2011, a group of New York community leaders, and persons interested in government and elections, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, asking the Court to take over redistricting of U.S. House and legislative districts, on the theory that the New York legislature had proved itself incapable of doing the job in a timely manner. That case is Favors v Cuomo, 11-cv-5632. It is before U.S. District Court Judge Dora Irizarry.
On February 10, the plaintiffs wrote a letter to Judge Irizarry, pleading for quick appointment of a 3-judge court, which would be needed for the court to take over redistricting. The letter says, in part, “The March 20 start to the candidate petitioning period is less than six weeks away, yet no congressional lines have even been proposed through New York’s legislative process. It is now exceedingly unlikely that a new congressional redistricting plan can be proposed and passed by the legislative redistricting task force, referred to and passed by the Legislature, signed by the Governor, sent to the U.S. Department of Justice and precleared, all sufficiently in advance of March 20 so that candidates and their supporters can prepare for the petitioning period.”
The letter attaches the February 9 order of U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe (who is in Albany), which imposed a reduction in the number of signatures needed to get on a primary ballot and a reduction in the petitioning period. The period runs from March 20 through April 16, which is ten days shorter than the normal period. Judge Sharpe’s order is very critical of the New York legislature. It starts out, “New York has once again demonstrated its intransigent refusal to comply with a federal mandate protecting the federal voting rights of those serving in the military overseas and those otherwise living on foreign soil.”