On January 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an opinion in In re: Nomination Papers of Kosin and Avery, 92 MAP 2022. The case concerned how to interpret the “sore loser law”. Caroline Avery and Brittany Kosin had submitted petitions to run in the 2022 Republican primary, for U.S. House and State House. But they withdrew those petitions and then filed new petitions to be Libertarian candidates in the general election. However, they were both challenged and the challenges had been upheld by lower state courts. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion says that the lower courts were correct to keep the candidates off the ballot. The Pennsylvania “sore loser law”, the Court explains, covers candidates who submitted petitions to run in a primary, even if they withdrew those primary petitions later.

There had been an old precedent in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that came to a different conclusion, but the new opinion finds some technical differences between the old precedent and the new situation. Here is the opinion.

On January 17, the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee rejected HB 101, which would have converted New Hampshire primaries from semi-closed to closed. The bill would not have allowed anyone to choose a party primary unless the individual had joined the party at least four months before the primary. The bill lost 19-0.

On January 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. circuit, heard oral argument in Stein v Federal Election Commission, 21-1213. The three judges are Karen Henderson (a Bush Sr. appointee), Robert Wilkins (an Obama appointee), and Gregory Katsas (a Trump appointee). The issue is whether Jill Stein, Green Party presidential nominee in 2016 must repay $175,000 in primary season matching funds. Stein has two arguments, a constitutional argument and a statutory interpretation argument, and either one by itself would relieve her of the need for any repayment.

The hearing seems to have gone reasonably well, and the oral argument link will be available later. Check back if that is interesting to you.