On July 31, a Utah state trial court ruled in favor of keeping Celeste Maloy on the September 5 Republican primary ballot. She is running in the special congressional election to fill the vacancy in the Second District. Her ballot status was challenged on the basis that she wasn’t a registered Republican when she filed. This news story says she was not registered at all on that date.

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court said that if a party wishes to nominate a non-member, it has a constitutional right to do that. Utah law says no one can run in a primary who is not a registered member of that party.

This link goes to an interview with Ryan Byrne of Ballotpedia, who says that the cost of paid petitioners doubled between 2020 and 2022. Thanks to Andy Jacobs for the link.

Former Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, July 30. He is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. When asked if he would consider running as the No Labels presidential nominee, he declined to talk about that. But he did defend the No Labels position that a new party presidential nominee could theoretically win the presidency. He pointed out that the president of France and the president of Mexico were both persons who won their first election as the nominee of a new party.

Here is a link to the entire edition of Meet the Press. The interview with Will Hurd begins after about fifteen minutes.