On June 22, U.S. District Court Judge Tom Barber, a Trump appointee, refused to enjoin the Florida law that does not permit a party to run any candidates who have not been registered members for a full year, even if the party is a new party which couldn’t possibly have any eligible members.

Here is the order in People’s Party of Florida v Florida Department of State, m.d., 8:22cv-1274. The People’s Party wanted to nominate a candidate for Pasco County Commission this year, but she couldn’t qualify because she has not been a member of the People’s Party for a full year. But it was impossible for her to register into the party a year ago, because it wasn’t on the ballot until September 2021, and Florida does not allow anyone to register into a party that isn’t ballot-qualified.

The order fails to mention all the other lower court decisions on this subject, all of which agree that states cannot impose this type of law on new parties. Such cases were won in the past in federal court in Oklahoma, and in the State Supreme Courts of New Mexico and Nevada. As to the U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, which says that states cannot bar parties from nominating non-members, Judge Barber said that case doesn’t control this case. He didn’t say why. Instead he depended on Storer v Brown, which upheld a California law that wouldn’t let independent candidates qualify if they had been members of a qualified party during the proceding year. That issue is separate from the issue of party autonomy to nominate whom they wish.

The order says the party should have filed the case sooner, although there would obviously be no election-administration problem if relief had been granted. Putting one more candidate on the ballot, over four months before the general election, does not disrupt election procedures. In the past the U.S. Supreme Court has added candidates to the general election ballot as late as August (John B. Anderson in Ohio), September (George Wallace in Ohio and Eugene McCarthy in Texas), and even in October (the 1968 nominees of the Alabama National Democratic Party, and the nominees of the Harold Washington Party in Illinois in 1990, and the nominees of the Socialist Workers and Socialist Labor in New York in 1970).

The order says the plaintiff-candidate is free to be a write-in candidate, but that is not true; the filing deadline for declared write-in candidates in Florida has already passed.

On June 20, California State Assemblymember Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) introduced ACA 16, which would repeal the top-two system and return to the system in effect 2000-2010. During those years, independent voters were always allowed to vote in all Republican and Democratic primaries for congress and partisan state office. Here is the text.

The measure needs two-thirds in each house to pass, and if it did pass the legislature, then the voters would vote on it. Thanks to Eric Wong for this news.

Assemblymember Kiley represents the part of California that is mostly in the State Senate Fourth District. This is the fourth-most Republican Senate district in the state, by registration, and yet this is the district in which voters are barred by the top-two system from voting for any Republican this coming November.

On June 20, Al Gross said he will withdraw from the Alaska U.S. House race. He placed in the top four in the special primary, and the law permits withdrawal from the primary but says the withdrawal must be made at least 64 days before the general election. According to this story, Gross withdrew too late. But the story also says that the proponents of the top-four initiative say the intent is to have a shorter deadline for special elections. If the initiative proponents are right and the state allows the fifth-place finisher to join the special general election in place of the withdrawn candidate, then there will be three Republicans and one Democrat on the special general election ballot in August.