On January 25, the Kansas House Elections Committee held a hearing on HB 2516, the bill to increase the independent petition requirement for statewide office from 5,000 signatures to 25,000.  This newspaper story describes the testimonty.  The bill faced opposition.  The committee will vote on the bill next week.

If the bill were to pass, Kansas would require a higher percentage for presidential candidates running outside the two major parties than any other state.  Currently Wyoming and the District of Columbia have the highest percentages, when the number of signatures for 2024 (using the easiest method) is divided by that jurisdiction’s most recent presidential vote.

On January 24, the Maine Supreme Court rejected the Secretary of State’s appeal in the lawsuit involving ballot access for former President Donald Trump.  The lower court had put the Secretary of State’s decision in abeyance pending resolution of the Colorado case in the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Secretary of State of Maine had then tried to persuade the State Supreme Court to reinstate her decision.  But the State Supreme Court said the lower court ruling isn’t yet final, so it isn’t possible to appeal it.

Thus, Trump remains on the Maine Republican presidential primary ballot.

Here is the ruling.  Trump v Secretary of State, 2024-ME-5.

Renowned Law Professor Bruce Ackerman here writes at Politico that if any U.S. Supreme Court Justice believes in originalism, that Justice must  vote to remove Donald Trump from ballots.  “Originalism” is the judicial theory that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the framers’ thinking.”

Ackerman appears not to know that when the 14th amendment was written, no one could prevent any candidate from running.  Ackerman would like to see the Supreme Court “prohibit his candidacy”.  He says if the Court is faithful to originalism, “Trump won’t be running.”

The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment obviously did not intend section three to prevent anyone from running.  They knew that government at that time had no means to prevent anyone from running, because there were no government-printed ballots.  Ballots were private.  Clearly, if the Justices use originalism, they will rule that Trump can run, but if he is elected, he can’t be sworn in.