The Georgia Republican Party state convention is June 9-12. The delegates will consider a proposal to bar candidates from Republican primaries for federal and state office if the party officers don’t approve of that candidates. That is already policy in the Alabama Republican Party.
See this story.
On June 9, the plaintiffs in Nairne v Ardoin, m.d. 3:22cv-178, asked the U.S. District Court to let the case proceed. The lawsuit concerns the legislative district boundaries created after the 2020 census. Plaintiffs charge that the districts violate the federal Voting Rights Act, and that the district boundaries illegally make it difficult for many African-Americans to elect legislators of their choice.
The case had been filed in 2022, but was suspended while the nation waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide a similar Alabama case, concerning U.S. House districts. That U.S. Supreme Court decision in Allen v Milligan came down yesterday, so it seems likely the Louisiana case will now move swiftly. Louisiana elects all its legislators this autumn. They all have four-year terms so if the case isn’t settled quickly, there may need to be special elections when the case is decided, assuming the plaintiffs win the case.
As noted in the previous blog post, on June 7 the Connecticut legislature adjourned. Many bills failed to pass: (1) bills letting independents vote in primaries; (2) bills to replace “disobedient” presidential electors; (3) bills to use ranked choice voting in presidential primaries and in general elections; (4) a bill to ban fusion; (5) a bill for a top-two system; (6) a bill requiring qualified minor parties to follow their own bylaws; (7) a bill to treat minor party nominees equally in the public funding system; (8) a bill that would have legalized out-of-state circulators. Out-of-state circulators are permitted under a federal court ruling but the election law hasn’t been updated to show that.
The only important election law bill that passed is HJR 1, a proposed constitutional amendment to allow early voting.
On June 7, the Connecticut legislature adjourned. HB 6908, which would have changed the deadline for a qualified minor party to submit the names of its nominees from 62 days before the general election, to the Friday after the second Tuesday in August, failed to pass. The same bill also moved the date of the presidential primaries from the fourth Tuesday in April to the first Tuesday in April. The bill had passed the House on June 2 but it didn’t get brought up in the Senate.
In Connecticut, qualified minor parties nominate by convention.
On June 7, Robert Klor Dean filed this four-page brief in Libertarian National Committee v Dean, e.d. Virginia, 3:23cv-155. Dean has been an officer of the Tidewater Libertarian Party. In March 2023 the Libertarian National Committee sued Dean, alleging trademark infringement. Dean’s brief defends himself and asks that the Court dismiss the lawsuit. Dean does not have an attorney and he is representing himself.
