On June 8, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Alabama in the lawsuit over U.S. House districts. The vote was 5-4. This will be headline news in all media, so there is no need for a longer blog post. The case is Allen v Milligan, 21-1086. Here is the decision.
The Alabama legislature is still in session, and will probably pass a new districting plan for U.S. House. If it does not, presumably the lower federal courts will draw up a new plan.
On June 6, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador issued an opinion, saying the initiative to set up a top-four system, which is about to start circulating, violates the “single-subject” rule for initiatives. The opinion says that whether or not Idaho should use ranked choice voting is a separate subject than whether to abolish the ability of parties to have nominees.
If the proponents of the initiative wish to go ahead, they are free to do so. The Attorney General’s Opinion does not prevent the proponents from sticking to their text.
The Opinion also says that the State Constitution, which requires election by plurality, does not permit Ranked Choice Voting.
The Arizona Secretary of State posts updated registration data every calendar quarter. The April 1, 2023 tally is the first one to include the No Labels Party. See it here. It shows 17 registered voters in that party. When the July 1 data is posted, undoubtedly No Labels will have a higher number.
By comparison, the June 1, 2023 Colorado registration tally shows 1,070 registered members of No Labels. The Oregon Secretary of State’s June 1 tally still doesn’t include No Labels; the office says they are temporarily listed in the “other” column.
On June 5, bills were introduced in the New York legislature to move the presidential primaries to April 2. They are A7690 and S7550, and they are expected to pass quickly.
New York holds its primaries for non-presidential office in June. It is expensive to hold primaries on two different dates.
In 2020 the New York presidential primaries were June 23, because then-Governor Andrew Cuomo had cancelled them by executive order but then state courts had ruled he didn’t have authority to do that. Therefore the presidential primaries were delayed and were on the same day as the primaries for non-presidential office.
In 2016 the New York presidential primaries were on April 19 and the congressional primaries were on June 28.
The Hawaii legislature adjourned last month without having passed SB 1005, which would have established presidential primaries for the first time in the state’s history. The bill had passed both houses but the two versions differed, and the conference committee didn’t act before the legislature went home.
The bill is still alive for the second half of the session, in early 2024.
The bill to change ballot order from alphabetical to random, SB 47, also did not pass in time, although it too is still alive for the 2024 part of the session.
