On May 29, the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in Brown v Yost, 24-3354, that is protective of the ability of people to use the initiative process in Ohio.  The Ohio law does not permit a statewide initiative to circulate until the proponents collect 1,000 signatures and submit their proposed initiative and a summary to the Attorney General.  If the Attorney General agrees that the summary is fair, he or she then send it on the Ohio Ballot Board, which then sends it on to the Secretary of State.  Only then can the group start to collect the signatures.  This year 413,000 signatures are needed, and the due date is July 3.

The group that filed the lawsuit has been trying to get started since last year, but the Attorney General has rejected their proposed summary six times.  The Sixth Circuit ordered the Attorney General to send the paperwork to the Ohio Ballot Board, a process that should be quick and should let the group finally start to get its signatures.  The measure would abolish qualified immunity for police officers.  The decision was 2-1.  Here is the Opinion.  It is by Judge Karen Nelson Moore, a Clinton appointee, and is also signed by Judge Andre Mathis, a Biden appointee.  The dissent is by Judge John K. Bush, a Trump appointee.

This news story says the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., campaign spent $1,100,000 on its New York petition drive.  It also says the campaign has filed a lawsuit to overturn New York state ballot access laws.  This post will be updated when more information about the lawsuit is found.

On September 28, Georgia filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in defense of its law that Public Service Commissioners are elected in at-large partisan elections.  Rose v Raffensperger, 23-1060.

The court fight over whether the elections should be at-large or by district has resulted in eliminating any election for that office in November 2024.  That has implications for ballot access.  A qualified minor party stays on the ballot in Georgia by polling 1% of the number of registered voters for any statewide office.  With no Public Service Commisioner in November 2024, the only statewide office will be President.  The Libertarian Party, the only ballot-qualified third party in Georgia, generally doesn’t meet the Georgia vote test for President.  It only did so once, in 2016.  But usually that doesn’t matter because the party always easily meets the vote test for Public Service Commissioner and for U.S. Senate, the only two other statewide offices up in presidential years.  By bad luck, there is no U.S. Senate election in Georgia in 2024, so the party will lose its qualified status if it doesn’t meet the vote test for President.

That qualified status only applies to statewide office.  It doesn’t apply to district and county office, so even though the Libertarian Party is qualified in Georgia now, it is only qualified for statewide office.  That is why neither it, nor any other third party, has ever appeared on the ballot in a regularly-scheduled U.S. House election.  Special elections for U.S. House don’t require any petitions so there have been minor party candidates in special U.S. House elections in Georgia.

The U.S. Supreme Court will probably decide during June whether to hear Rose v Raffensperger.  If the Court refuses to hear it, then the state will have won the lawsuit and someone at that point might sue the state to force it to hold a statewide Public Service Commissioner election in November 2024.  However there would be no clear solution as to how the Democratic and Republican Parties would nominate for that office, because the primary was held on May 21.