On December 20, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued an opinion explaining the basis for its order last week in LaRoque v Holder.  This is the case brought by some voters in Kinston, North Carolina, who supported a winning city ballot measure in 2008 that converted city elections from partisan elections to non-partisan elections.  The U.S. Justice Department had then objected to switching to non-partisan elections.  The voters then sued the Attorney General.  Last week the court ruled against the voters, and for the U.S. Justice Department, but did not issue an explanation.  Now, the court has released its explanation.

The court says the plaintiff voters don’t have standing because they are not truly injured by the Justice Department’s action.  The decision implies that if the city of Kinston had filed the lawsuit, then the lawsuit could have proceeded.  Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.

On December 21, the Census Bureau released its calculation of how many seats in the U.S. House each state will have, starting in 2012.

Texas gained four seats; Florida gained two seats; and these states each gained one seat:  Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington.

New York and Ohio each lost two seats; and these states each lost one seat:  Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The Quarterly Review, a distinguished British publication, has an interview with Congressman Ron Paul in its Autumn 2010 issue.  The interview was conducted during the last week of October 2010 by Peter Gemma.  See it here.  Gemma asked Paul about his run for President as the Libertarian nominee in 1988, and about today’s minor parties.  Paul said he ran in 1988 as a Libertarian because the people deserved a legitimate alternative to the increasingly indistinguishable major parties.  He added, “I believe alternative parties serve a crucial role in politics because they give voice to the issues the major parties ignore.  The problem is that both Democrats and Republicans have made the American system very biased in order to entrench their power.  I find it especially interesting that the establishment justifies unconstitutional wars as ‘promoting democracy’ overseas while doing its best to silence opposition at home.”

Paul has more to say about that subject (as well as many other subjects), all of which can be read by using the link.