On February 18, the U.S. Supreme Court conference considered whether to hear the case from Illinois on the special U.S. Senate election last year, to fill President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. The 7th circuit ruled last year that the 17th Amendment required Illinois to hold a special election on November 2, 2010, to fill the last two months of that term. The special election was in addition to the election for the regular 6-year term for that same seat.

The case is really two cases. The state argues that it should not have been forced to hold that special election. And former U.S. Senator Roland Burris argues that, given that the election was being held, it was unconstitutional to limit access to the ballot in the special election, to only the candidates who were on the ballot for the 6-year term election. The cases are Burris v Judge, 10-367, and Quinn v Judge, 10-821. The state of Louisiana filed an amicus brief on the side of Illinois, and twelve other states joined the brief. That brief is neutral on the question of which candidates should have been allowed on the ballot.

Massachusetts has been holding presidential primaries since 1912, but Secretary of State William Galvin has told the legislature that the legislature should either increase the appropriation for his office, or else it should pass a bill ending the presidential primary. He suggested the state could use caucuses. See this story from Frontloading HQ, the blog that is the best source of news about the dates of presidential primaries and caucuses.

On February 17, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver introduced A5388, at the request of Governor Andrew Cuomo. It provides for a redistricting commission to draw boundaries of U.S. House and state legislative districts. It allows for the possibility of putting people on the Commission who are neither Republicans or Democrats.

The bill provides first for an Independent Redistricting Nominations Commission, which would choose the members of the Independent Redistricting Commission. The people on the Nominations Commission would be two chosen by the majority leader of each house of the legislature, two chosen by the minority leader of each house of the legislature, and four by the Governor. The four gubernatorial appointees would include two who are members of the largest party (as judged by voter registration), and two who are members of the second-largest party.

These eight individuals would then choose a “pool” of 40 individuals, of which 15 would be Democrats, 15 would be Republicans, and 10 would be “others”. The bill specifies the major parties by name. Then, from that pool of 40, eleven members would be chosen for the Redistricting Commission itself. Each of the four legislative leaders would choose two members from the pool of 40, and then those eight would choose three more members from the remaining members of the pool. Here is the text of the bill. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news of this bill.