The U.S. Supreme Court did not issue any election law decisions on Tuesday, January 15. However, the Court is expected to issue more opinions on Wednesday, January 16, so there may be an opinion on January 16 in either the Washington state election law case, or the New York state election law case, or possibly both.
January 15 is the deadline for determining which presidential primary candidates will be on the Mississippi Democratic and Republican presidential primary ballots. The primary is March 11. The Secretary of State had already announced a preliminary list of candidates (those mentioned in the news media), back on December 14. That list remains unchanged. In theory, anyone left off the list could have submitted 500 signatures between December 14 and January 14, but no one did so.
Democrats on the ballot will be Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson. Even though Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson have withdrawn publicly, none of them sent a letter to the Mississippi Secretary of State, asking to be withdrawn from the Mississippi primary, so their names remain.
Republicans will be Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, McCain, Romney, Paul, Tancredo and Thompson. Tom Tancredo, like the three Democrats mentioned above, did not withdraw from the Mississippi primary even though he has publicly withdrawn.
The January 15 New York Times carries this signed editorial, fearing that the U.S. Supreme Court no longer cares about protecting the rights of voters. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s election law blog for this.
On January 15, the Chicago Tribune published this story about how Barack Obama won his first Democratic primary in 1996 (for State Senate) by successfully challenging the primary petitions of all the other Democrats who were running for that seat, including the incumbent State Senator. Thanks to Earl Divoky for this.
On January 14, a Nevada state court judge ruled that Dennis Kucinich must be allowed to participate in the January 15 debate, along with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. The debate will be televised on MSNBC, and is hosted by MSNBC.
The basis for the ruling was that MSNBC had previously invited Kucinich, and then revoked its invitation. Thanks to Eric Garris for this news. UPDATE: MSNBC is appealing. The appeal will obviously be decided on January 15.
