On September 21, Judge Pamela Ann Rymer of southern California died at the age of 69. Here is the 9th circuit press release. She had been fighting cancer, but had sat on an oral arguments panel as recently as July 2011, and had authored her last opinion last month. She had been scheduled to be on the panel in Washington State Grange v Washington State Republican Party, the case against the Washington state top-two system. Normally the identity of appeals judges is not known that far in advance of an oral argument. But in this case, the 9th circuit had agreed that the same panel that struck down the Washington state top-two system in 2006 should hear the case again. The other two judges on the panel are also southern Californians: Judge Raymond C. Fisher and Judge Dorothy Nelson. Thanks to How Appealing for the news about Judge Rymer.

On September 22, three judges of the Third Circuit issued a new opinion in Carl Lewis’s ballot access lawsuit. The new opinion upholds the decision of the U.S. District Court, and the Secretary of State, that he should not be on the ballot. This is a reversal of what the same panel did last week. Here is the 10-page decision. The case is Lewis v Guadagno, 11-3401. The new ruling does not mention that the same panel had issued a contrary ruling last week.

The new opinion relies on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Clements v Fashing, issued in 1982, saying that the right to be a candidate is not a fundamental right. The new opinion upholds the constitutionality of New Jersey’s Constitution, which requires a candidate for State Senate to have lived in the state for the four years preceding the election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On September 21, Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray appointed three new members of the District of Columbia Board of Elections. However, one of his nominees, Robert L. Mallett, does not meet the city’s duration of residency requirement. That law requires members of the Board to have lived in the District continuously for the previous three years. Mallett does not meet that requirement. See this story.

City councilmember Mary Cheh said Mallett “could always petition for an exception.” D.C. also requires candidates for District of Columbia presidential electors to have lived in the District for the preceding three years, a law that has made it difficult for some minor parties in the past to field a slate of presidential electors. D.C. also does not permit petitioners to work in the District if they are not residents.

D.C. officials seem to have a propensity for ignoring election laws that are inconvenient. In 2010, initial election results showed that no Republican nominee for districtwide partisan office had polled as many as 7,500 votes. The D.C. Board of Elections then re-interpreted the law on how a party remains ballot-qualified, which on its face appears to require a party to poll 7,500 votes every two years. The D.C. Board said that because John McCain had polled more than 7,500 votes for President in the District in November 2008, that was good enough to extend the party’s status for four years, not just two years, and that therefore the party was still ballot-qualified. When the final returns were compiled, however, it turned out that the Republicans had polled more than 7,500 votes for one office in 2010.