On March 24, a poll paid for by the California Democratic Party for the gubernatorial race was released. See the results here.
Reply
On March 23, the California Appellate Court refused relief to Joel Gilbert, who had sued to force the Secretary of State to investigate whether Eric Swalwell meets the duration of residency requirement to run for Governor. Gilbert has now asked the State Supreme Court to hear his case. No. S295810.
The U.S. Supreme Court has posted the transcript of the March 23 oral argument in Watson v Republican National Committee, 24-1260. Like all U.S. Supreme Court transcripts, it has an index of every word (other than extremely common words like “the”) spoken. Here is the transcript.
Even though the Libertarian Party of Mississippi is a party to the case, that seems to have made no difference. No attorney and no justice made reference to the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. The index does not include the word “Libertarian.”
The Mississippi Libertarian Party is on the same side as the Republican National Committee. Both parties believe that when Congress in 1872 told states to hold congressional elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, that implicitly meant that all ballots must be received by the election administrators by the end of election day.
Some of the justices seemed to concentrate on some extremely unlikely hypotheticals. For example, Justice Gorsuch seemed fascinated by the idea that voters who used the postal service could ask the postal service to return their ballots after that voter had already put the ballot in the mail. He felt this might happen if there was a revelation of a scandal that became known the date after election day.
On March 19, the post-trial brief was filed by some of the plaintiffs in Florida Decides Healthcare v Byrd, n.d., 4:25cv-211. This is the lawsuit that challenges the many restrictions to initiatives that the Florida legislature passed in 2025. The opening paragraphs set forth an eloquent defense of the people who engage in petitioning for initiatives.
Joel Gilbert, a California voter who had sued the Secretary of State to require an investigation into the qualifications of Eric Swalwell to run for Governor of California, has filed an appeal from the March 23 decision of a trial court that said the Secretary of State has no duty. The appeal case number in the Third Appellate District is C105907.