On January 18, a Virginia legislative committee defeated HB 36. The bill would have required parties to pay the election-administration costs of their own primaries. The vote was 3-3. If the bill had been enacted, it is likely that the major parties would have switched most of their nominations to conventions.

The Committee has five Republicans and two Democrats. Both Democrats, James Scott and Lionell Spruill, voted “no.” Three of the Republicans voted for the bill: Mark Cole, R. Steven Landes, and John O’Bannon. One Republican, Israel O’Quinn, voted “no”. One Republican, Robert Bell, didn’t vote.

On January 20, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the decision of a 3-judge court in West Virginia. The 3-judge court had invalidated the West Virginia U.S. House district boundaries. Here is the U.S. Supreme Court order, which implies that the Court wants to decide this case for itself. The 3-judge court had struck down the legislature’s redistricting plan because the three districts differed in population. The difference between the district with the highest population, and the district with the lowest population, was three-fourths of 1%.

There is a fair amount of precedent that when the normal petitioning period for minor party and independent candidates is shrunk, due to late redistricting, states must either extend the petitioning deadlines, or reduce the number of signatures needed. Because redistricting is taking a great deal of time to be settled in many states, there will be opportunities in many states this year for some temporary reductions in the number of signatures needed, especially for district office.

On January 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an eleven-page unsigned unanimous opinion, telling the 3-judge U.S. District Court in Texas to redraw the congressional and legislative districts that that court had drawn earlier. See this report from Scotusblog. Here is the order. See this newspaper story.