On April 28, U.S. District Court Judge Noel Hillman, a Bush Jr. appointee, refused to grant injunctive relief to a candidate for New Jersey State Senate, Carl Lewis. The New Jersey Constitution sets a 4-year residency requirement in the state, in order to run for State Senate. Candidate Carl Lewis, who is famous for his success in Olympic track events and who wants to appear on the June 2011 Democratic primary ballot, argued that the New Jersey constitutional provision violates the U.S. Constitution, but he did not prevail. Here is the 2-page order. Here is a newspaper story about the decision. Lewis also has a lawsuit in state court, arguing that he meets the residency requirement. Thanks to Oliver Hall and Heidi Fuller for this news.

On April 27, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2335. It says that vice-presidential nominees’ names should be printed on November ballots. As a result, North Dakota is the only state which does not print the names of vice-presidential nominees on November ballots.

HB 2335 had started out as a bill to also delete the names of presidential elector candidates from the November ballot, but the idea of removing the names of presidential elector candidates from the ballot faced political opposition. Many candidates for presidential elector, for the major parties, are state legislators, and they apparently enjoy seeing their names on the ballot in their role as presidential elector candidates.

As noted earlier, on March 30, a U.S. District Court Judge in South Carolina ruled that the Republican Party cannot close its primary to non-members, on the grounds that the party is always free to nominate by convention if it wishes. On April 27, the Republican Party filed a brief with the U.S. District Court, asking for clarification of the March 30 ruling. The party believes that the March 30 ruling is unclear on whether the challenged law is constitutional on its face, or constitutional as applied. Also, the party makes the case that the ruling is unclear on whether it is just a denial of injunctive relief, or a judgment that the case is now over in that court. A response from the state is due on May 16. Until these ambiguities are settled, it is not possible to know if the party will appeal. The case is The Greenville County Republican Party v State, 6:10-cv-1407.