Texas does not have the statewide initiative or referendum for state laws or constitutional amendments, but it does have provision for a non-binding referendum to be placed on partisan primary ballots. Section 172.088 of the Texas election code requires signatures equal to 5% of that party’s primary vote for Governor, in the last gubernatorial primary. Currently for Republicans, that requires 97,709 signatures.

A group has been circulating a referendum petition intended for the March 2024 Republican primary ballot, that asks if Texas should secede from the U.S. The petition deadline is December 1. It is not clear if the group got enough signatures, but even if they didn’t, the state party committee could also vote to put that referendum on the Texas Republican primary ballot. Thanks to Mike Drucker for this news.

This case involves the constitutionality of Texas’ ballot access laws. The Plaintiffs initially filed a lawsuit in US District Court, but lost, except for the issue of electronic signatures, which the judge ruled that the State of Texas had to allow.

The State of Texas filed an appeal in the Fifth Circuit on November 1, 2023 on the portion of the case that it lost, and a response was filed by the initial Plaintiffs in this case on December 1, 2023.

Here is the Brief of the Defendants-Appellants (State of Texas) that was filed on November 1, 2023.

Here is the Brief of Plaintiffs-Appellees (several minor parties) that was filed on December 1, 2023.

In 2021, the Idaho legislature passed HB 231, which changed the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates from August 25 of the election year, to the tenth Friday before the primaries. Therefore the 2024 deadline is March 10.

This change violates the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 US 780 (1983), which said early petition deadlines for independent presidential candidates are unconstitutional. Idaho is the third state to have passed a law recently that contradicts Anderson v Celebrezze. The others are Utah (which did so in 2022) and North Carolina (which did so in 2021).

BAN had not previously reported this Idaho development. Thanks to Paul Rossi for the news. It is likely that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will soon file a lawsuit against the Utah deadline. Utah already lost on this issue in 1984, when Lyndon LaRouche sued to overturn the then-April deadline. Utah then changed it to September, but in recent years forgot why it did that, and moved it to January.