Petitioning in Virginia for minor party and independent candidates for President and both houses of Congress cannot begin until Virginia U.S. House boundaries are known. This is because statewide petitions have a distribution requirement; they need 400 signatures from each U.S. House district. Also, aside from that, presidential petitions cannot circulate before the districts are known because the petitions must carry the name of a presidential elector candidate who resides in each district.

The Virginia bills to redistrict the U.S. House seats are HB 251 and SB 455. The house bill passed the House on January 13, and both bills passed the Senate Committee that handles election law bills on January 17. However, the vote in the Senate Committee was 8-7. Democrats, who all opposed the bill, charge that the plan violates the Voting Rights Act. They also charge that because the Virginia Constitution says redistricting for U.S. House must be accomplished in the odd year after the census, any bill passed in the 2012 session of the legislature violates the State Constitution. See this story.

On January 18, the Delaware bill for the National Popular Vote Plan was heard in the Senate Administrative Services/Election Committee. After hearing testimony on both sides, the Committee chair decided not to bring the bill up for a Committee vote. The bill had passed the House last year by a vote of 21-19. See this story. One of Delaware’s Republican National Committee members testified against the bill.

On February 21, the California Appeals Court, 3rd district, will hear oral arguments in Fuller v Bowen, in Sacramento. This is the case over whether the California Constitutional provision, requiring candidates for legislature to have lived in their district for a year before running, should be enforced. The one-year residency requirement has been in the California Constitution since 1879. However, in 1975, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State decided not to enforce it, because, as they said, they believed that provision violates the U.S. Constitution.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1975 summarily affirmed a decision of a 3-judge court, upholding a 7-year residency within the state of New Hampshire for candidates for State Senate. Also, last year, the Third Circuit removed Carl Lewis, the Democratic nominee for State Senate in New Jersey, from the general election ballot because he had not lived in New Jersey for four years. And in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidacy is not a fundamental right, in a Texas case called Clements v Fashing.

Fuller v Bowen was filed by a Republican legislative candidate, Heidi Fuller. She met the residency requirement and she had filed the lawsuit to force the Secretary of State to remove one of her opponents, who, everyone agreed, had not met the residency requirement. Although the 2010 election is over, lawsuits like this are not moot.