On February 6, Larry Sharpe, the Libertarian nominee for Governor of New York, said he will also run in the Republican primary. New York law allows such activity. He will need 15,000 signatures to get on the Republican primary ballot, and 45,000 to get on the general election ballot as the Libertarian. See this story.
On February 6, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed SB 1425, which moves the non-presidential primary from early August to mid-July. That automatically moves the petition deadline for a new party two weeks earlier, to mid-November of the year before the election.
On February 3, the Mississippi Senate Elections Committee passed SC 518. It would bring back the statewide initiative.
On January 30, the state of Missouri filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce. The lawsuit seeks to obtain an order that when the number of U.S. House seats for each state is determined after the 2030 census, the population figures for each state should not count undocumented aliens. State of Missouri v U.S. Dept. of Commerce, e.d. Missouri, 4:26cv-131.
The case was initially assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Maria A. lanahan, a Trump appointee, but she recused herself, so now it is assigned to Judge John A. Ross, an Obama appointee. The case will probably become a 3-judge U.S. District Court case. It will be interesting to see if the Defendant defends current practices of the Census Bureau. The Bureau has traditionally resisted asking respondents if they are legally admitted, for fear that if the Census were to include such a question, it would be more difficult to persuade people to answer the Census questions.
Last year, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sued Illinois over some ballot access restrictions, while he was still an independent presidential candidate. His lawsuit, which challenges restrictions on who can circulate petitions, is still alive. The state has argued that it should be dismissed as moot.
On February 5, the attorney for Kennedy asked the U.S. District Court to take note of two recent opinions that came out since the Illinois case was argued. The two cases are the Bost decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that came out on January 14; and the Cornel West ballot access decision from North Carolina, which came out on January 23. See the filing here.
