U.S. District Court Strikes Down South Carolina U.S. House District Boundaries

Posted on by January 6, 2023
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On January 6, a 3-judge U.S. District Court struck down the South Carolina U.S. House boundaries for the First District as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP v Alexander, 3:21cv-3302. Here is the decision. The court asks the legislature to draw new boundaries by March 31, 2023. If the legislature does not do that, presumably the court will appoint a special master to draw new boundaries.

The decision is from Judge Toby Heytens (a Biden appointee), Mary Geiger Lewis (Obama), and Richard M. Gergel (Obama). Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.

Pennsylvania Democratic Legislator Becomes an Independent on Assuming the Speakership

Posted on by January 5, 2023
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On December 4, Pennsylvania state representative Mark Rozzi changed his registration from Democratic to independent, which he had promised to do when he had been elected Speaker of the House earlier that day. See this story.

Rozzi was first elected as a Democrat in 2012 and had been re-elected as a Democrat ever since. In November 2022 he polled 63% of the vote against his Republican opponent. He lives in Berks County.

The election of an independent speaker came about because the chamber was almost perfectly divided, and because of several vacancies, it was difficult to say which party had a majority. Rozzi received support from all the Democrats and a substantial number of Republicans, as a compromise to help organize the chamber.

Fourteen of the Twenty Republican House Members Who Won’t Vote for Kevin McCarthy are from States That Let Independents Vote in Republican Primaries

Posted on by January 5, 2023
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Twenty U.S. House Republicans have been voting against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker. This blog post takes no position on the wisdom of these Representatives’ decision not to vote for their party’s nominee for Speaker. But it seems obvious that the twenty are not “centrists”, or “moderates”.

Open primaries, and proponents of eliminating party nominees in public elections, constantly claim that letting independent voters vote in primaries produce more moderate office-holders. Yet among the twenty who won’t vote for McCarthy, fourteen of them are from states in which independent voters can vote in Republican primaries.

Here is the list of the twenty. The six who are from closed primary states are one from Oklahoma, three from Florida, one from Pennsylvania, and one from Maryland.

Brief Filed in Lawsuit Over New York’s May Petition Deadline for Independent Candidates

Posted on by January 5, 2023
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On January 4, Buffalo, New York Mayor Byron Brown filed this brief in Meadors v Erie County Board of Elections, w.d., 1:21cv-982. This is the lawsuit against the May petition deadline for New York independent candidates, a deadline created in 2019. Before 2019 the deadline had always been in August, September or October of election years.

The Mayor filed an independent petition in 2021, the year he was running for re-election. Although his petition had enough valid signatures, it was rejected because it had been filed after the deadline. The Mayor won injunctive relief against the deadline in U.S. District Court in 2019, but then the Second Circuit reversed, without comment. So he did not get on the November 2021 ballot and had to spend over $1,000,000 on a write-in campaign. He did get re-elected on write-ins.

Americans Coming Together Nominee Polls Highest Percentage for a West Virginia Minor Party Legislative Candidate in At Least 95 Years

Posted on by January 4, 2023
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In November 2022, the Americans Coming Together Party ran three legislative candidates in West Virginia. The party is a centrist party. One of its nominees, S. Marshall Wilson, polled 39.7% of the vote in a two-person race, against a Republican opponent. That is the highest percentage for a minor party legislative candidate in West Virginia in at least 95 years.