On July 13, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 437, which requires qualified parties to notify the Secretary of State by 75 days before a presidential general election of the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees.

This is the type of law that is often administered in a discriminatory fashion. There have been times in some states when a major party failed to follow such a deadline, but state officials always excused these lapses. For example, in 1964, the Iowa Democratic Party forgot to certify Lyndon Johnson’s name in time, but the Secretary of State put him on the ballot anyway. Major parties have similarly sometimes missed these types of deadline in Indiana, Texas, and Florida, but always there were no consequences.

But when minor parties or independent candidates miss these deadlines, usually the state enforces the law. In 1996 the Arizona Libertarian Party missed a deadline, and the Secrertary of State refused to put Harry Browne on the ballot. But a state court reversed the action of the Secretary of State and put Browne on.

On July 17, U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, an Obama appointee, issued a 109-page order in Pendergrass v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:21cv-05339. This is a case filed in 2021, challenging the boundaries of Georgia’s U.S. House district boundaries. Judge Jones ruled that the case cannot be settled without a trial. The date of the trial has not yet been set, but it will probably be three or four months in the future, perhaps more.

When the trial is over, the judge will rule on whether the existing districts are unconstitutional. If he rules against the state, then the legislature would need to draw up new districts, and that would probably be in early 2024.

Two other related cases argue that the legislative districts are also in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

This is good news for 2024 minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House and legislative districts in Georgia. Courts in the past have ruled that when Georgia redistricting has been delayed, the state must shrink the number of signatures required, proportionate to the amount of time lost. The Georgia petitioning period runs from January to July of even years.

The trial will be complicated because the law on districting relative to race is complicated. If one reads the order, one can understand how complicated these cases are. Most of the order relates to why the state’s brief for summary judgment should be denied. The part of the order explaining why the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is also denied starts on page 74.

In 2020, Georgia elected eight Republicans and six Democrats to the U.S. House. But after the legislature redrew the districts in 2021, the state elected nine Republicans and five Democrats in 2022.

This letter from Oliver Hall, the Founder, Executive Director & General Counsel of the Center for Competitive Democracy, to Harvard Law University Law Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, as published in the July/August 2023 edition of Capitol Hill Citizen: