U.S. House district boundaries for 2012 are still unsettled in six of the seven most populous states. Only California’s U.S. House district boundaries are established.

The legislatures of Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania still haven’t passed any congressional redistricting bills. In Texas and Illinois, the legislatures have passed bills to draw new U.S. House districts, but lawsuits are challenging the new districts, and courts have already ordered the normal petitioning period for primary ballot access in those states pushed back. And in Ohio, the U.S. House districts were redrawn by the legislature, but a referendum petition is circulating. If the petition obtains enough signatures, the legislature’s plan can’t be used until the people vote on the plan in November 2012.

On Friday, November 25, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Texas refused a request by the state that the legislature’s own redistricting plan (for both houses of the legislature) be used, instead of the one drawn up by that Court. Texas said it would be asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the lower court. See this story. The U.S. District Court vote was 2-1. The case is Perez v Texas, 5:11-cv-360, in the western district in San Antonio.

In 2011, no party with “Socialist” in its name placed any nominees on the ballot in any state for any regularly-scheduled federal or state elections. This was the first calendar year since 1886 for which that statement was true. However, there were Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Party, nominees on the ballot in 2011 for a few elections for local office, and also the SWP had a nominee on the ballot in a 2011 New York special U.S. House election.

Usually, in odd years, either the Socialist Party, or the Socialist Workers Party, places nominees on the ballot in New Jersey for state office. New Jersey elects all its state offices in odd years, and has easy ballot access. But in 2011, neither party got on the ballot for state office in that state. Other states with odd year elections for state office are Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The first state to have candidates from a party with the word “Socialist” in its name was Ohio, where the Socialist Labor Party ran a slate of statewide offices in 1877.