On March 20, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted an amicus brief in the Texas congressional redistricting case. Since the oral argument has already been held, this acceptance of a brief is extraordinarily rare. The brief points out that the Georgia legislature passed a bill in January 2006, adjusting the State Senate boundaries of just three districts, and that the motive for this was to help one particular candidate (who is the brother-in-law of the incumbent, who is retiring). Specifically, the new boundaries exclude the residence of the strongest Democrat in the open district, so he can’t run for that seat. The brief points out that if the Court permits mid-decade redistricting for partisan reasons, this behavior will become common. The brief also points out that the bill wasn’t signed by Georgia’s Republican Governor until a few hours after the oral argument was over, on March 1. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

On March 20, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Igartua v U.S., the case over whether international treaties that the U.S. has signed (promising to treat all citizens equally for voting rights purposes) force the U.S. to let residents of Puerto Rico have representation in the Electoral College. 05-650.

At the end of 2005, the Connecticut legislature passed “Clean Elections”, public funding for state elections. But the bill severely discriminated against candidates who are not Democrats and Republicans. Although all candidates need to raise a considerable amount of private donations to qualify for public funding, extra hurdles were placed on non-major party members. These included submitting petitions signed by 20% of the number of voters who voted for the office at the last election (for full funding, for independent candidates or new parties). Parties that had polled 10% at the last election were eligible for one-third of funding.

Now, bills have been introduced to ease the discrimination somewhat. SB 83 and HB 5572 would provide equal funding for parties that had polled 10% at the last election.

HB 5052 and HB 5610 would lower the petition, to either 5% of the number of registered voters (for full funding), 4% (for two-thirds funding) and 3% (for one-third funding). They would also lower the vote thresholds to 5% (for full funding), 4% (for two-thirds funding) and 3% (for one-third funding).

SB 625 deletes petitioning at all, so that (if this bill were enacted) new parties and independent candidates couldn’t participate at all.

All of these bills had a hearing on March 13, but no action has been taken yet.

There is no rational reason to build any discrimination into the public funding law. The “Clean Elections” of Maine and Arizona are refreshing in their simplicity and fairness; every candidate is treated the same, regardless of party. Candidates who raise enough private money qualify for public funding, period, regardless of party.