The North Carolina legislature meets on September 12 in a special session that has the authority to act on election law bills. At that time the legislature may pass HB 32, the ballot access reform bill that has already passed the House. It may also pass one of the bills that abolishes the straight-ticket device.
If those bills don’t pass in September, it is likely that another special session will be held in December 2011. After that, the legislature won’t meet until May 2012.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, will hold an oral argument on November 9, 2011, in Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, 10-5337. This is the case over the constitutionality of the post office’s ban on petitioning on all interior postal sidewalks. The case was filed in 2000.
The U.S. Court of Appeals already ruled in August 2005 that the petitioning ban for postal sidewalks parallel to the street is unconstitutional. At that time, the Appeals court sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to settle the interior sidewalks issue. The lower court delayed the case for years, and then ruled in favor of the postal regulation.
UPDATE: the three judges will be Karen L. Henderson, Janice Rogers Brown, and Thomas B. Griffith. Judge Brown wrote the decision in Boardley v U.S. Department of the Interior, 615 F.3d 508 (2010) which struck down rigid rules on First Amendment activity in national parks. Judge Henderson was on the panel in this same post office lawsuit in 2005, in which the three Appeals judges ruled favorably on postal sidewalks parallel to the street.
On August 15, Jon Stewart broadcast this very funny commentary on how many television networks analyzed the Iowa Republican straw poll results. Thanks to Mike Benoit for the link.
According to this story, Americans Elect is about to begin petitioning for presidential ballot status in Arkansas. The petition to put a new party on the ballot only requires 1,000 signatures, for groups that only want to run a presidential nominee, but no nominees for other office.
The August 16 issue of the Tri-Valley Herald, daily newspaper of eastern Alameda County and nearby parts of Contra Costa County, has this op-ed, suggesting that California’s top-two system violates the U.S. Constitution. The op-ed is authored by Stephen D. Zendejas.
This is virtually the first time that any California newspaper has carried any content that suggests that the constitutionality of Proposition 14, passed by the voters in June 2010, is not assured. Even though the constitutionality of that type of system is pending in the 9th circuit, it appears that no California newspaper has told its readers that the lawsuit is still pending. Even this op-ed does not tell the readers about that specific case, which is called Washington State Republican Party v Washington State Grange.
