On December 22, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed A4282B/S3505B. The identical bills move most local partisan elections from November of odd years, to November of even years. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
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On December 22, the Department of Homeland Security has told Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that he does not deserve Secret Service protection. See this story. This is the third time the request has been denied.
Cenk Uygur is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, even though he was born in Turkey. So far he is on the Democratic ballot in Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont.
The list of candidates who will be on various presidential primary ballots is final so far in seventeen states, as of December 22. States that don’t have government-administered presidential primaries in 2024 are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
On December 22, the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidated the legislative district boundaries. Clarke v Wisconsin Election Commission, 2023-WI-79. The Wisconsin Constitution says legislative districts must be contiguous, yet a majority of the districts include islands of unattached territory. The majority says the legislature must draw new districts in time for the 2024 election (the primary for state office and congress is in August). Othrwise the court will redraw the districts.
The majority opinion is 50 pages. The vote was 4-3. Each dissenter wrote seprately. One dissent is 89 pages, one is 56 pages, and one is 22. None of the dissents argues that the existing districts are contiguous. Instead, each dissent says that the majority is wrong on procedural issues.
The majority upholds the validity of “touch-point contiguity”. This means that the majority considers a district to be contiguous even if two parts of a district are drawn so that each touches the other at an infinitely small point. To illustrate, if one were to ask if Utah touches New Mexico, one would say “yes” even though they only touch at one infinitely small point at the “four corners” area of the United States. One could say the same thing about Colorado and Arizona. The majority also agrees that a district is contiguous even if two parts of a district are only connected by water, not land.
Here is the decision. I have been reading court opinions since 1970 and I have never seen an election law case in which the dissents were so hostile to the majority. Some parts of the dissents attack members of the majority in highly personal terms. Even if you aren’t inclined to read court opinions, you might be motivated to read the dissents. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is bitterly divided between the four Democratic members and the three Republican members.
On December 22, California Assemblymember Vince Fong filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court, seeking to win a ruling that he may be on the March 2024 Republican ballot as a candidate for U.S. House, 20th district. The Secretary of State ruled that he could not be on the ballot, even though he had the needed 40 valid signatures, because he had earlier filed to run for re-election for Assembly. When he did that, he did not know that incumbent U.S. House member Kevin McCarthy would not be running. See this story. The Secretary of State ruled that no one may file for two offices in the same election. Fong can’t withdraw from the Assembly race because California does not permit any candidate to withdraw. California is the only state that forbids withdrawal.
The case is Fong v Weber, 23WM-000137. It has a hearing on December 28 at 1:30 p.m. Here is the opening brief.