On June 20, the Libertarian National Committee filed this brief in Libertarian National Committee v Dean, e.d., 3:23cv-155, the Virginia trademark case. The Defendant, Robert Klor Dean, does not have an attorney and is not an attorney himself, but he had filed a motion to dismiss the case. The LNC filing criticizes Dean’s paperwork.
Three individuals have been charged with several felonies in connection with ostensibly fraudulent petitions submitted for five of ten Republican candidates for Governor of Michigan to get on the Primary ballot in 2022. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this story link:
On June 20, a Missouri state trial court ruled that an initiative petition on the subject of abortion may begin to circulate, even though the Attorney General had rejected the paperwork. State law says the Attorney General has certain responsibilities to approve the form of initiative petitions, but that only the Auditor may calculate how much the initiative would cost taxpayers if it passed. The Auditor had ruled some time ago that the initiative, if passed, would cost the state $51,000. But the Attorney General tried to reject that estimate, saying the state would lose billions in tax revenue if the measure passed, because a certain class of taxpayers would not be born.
The court ruled that the Attorney General cannot interfere with the Auditor’s cost. Thanks to Ken Bush for the news.
A federal lawsuit to force Georgia to redraw its U.S. House districts was filed in 2021, and it is still far from resolved. On June 8, the three judges handling the case asked both sides to submit new briefs. The case is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v Georgia, n.d., 1:21cv-5338.
The U.S. Supreme Court had handed down its Alabama redistricting decision on June 8, 2023, and had ruled that the federal Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to change its districts to make it likely that African-Americans will be a majority of the voters in two districts, not just one. The new briefs in the Georgia case will explain whether the Alabama decision must be applied to Georgia.
The new Alabama districts will probably be passed by the Alabama legislature in the next few weeks. The job in Alabama isn’t that difficult, because in Alabama the lower court had already approved a plan for two Black-majority districts. But the Georgia case will take far longer to resolve. It is somewhat likely that any new Georgia districts (should Georgia lose the lawsuit) won’t be in place for many months. If the districts aren’t settled by January 2024, Georgia will probably need to give some petitioning relief to any independent or minor party candidates who petition in 2024. The petitioning period for district office in Georgia runs from mid-January to mid-July. In 2002, a U.S. District Court judge cut the number of signatures to approximately two-thirds of normal, because the petitioning period was shortened due to late redistricting. The same thing happened in Georgia in 1982, when the normal petitioning was cut down to only one-fourth of normal, but only in the two Atlanta districts.
On June 6, the Michigan House Elections Committee passed HB 4156, the bill to provide that Michigan join the National Popular Vote Plan.
