On November 15, the Alaskan Independence Party filed its opening brief in the Alaska Supreme Court, in the challenge to the top-four system passed by the voters in November 2020. Kohlhaas v State, S-18210.
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The Green Party of California, and the Peace & Freedom Party, have agreed to a unified 2022 campaign for statewide offices. This means that the parties will support each other’s endorsed statewide candidates. The Peace & Freedom Party has endorsed Greens for three statewide offices, and the Green Party has endorsed PFP candidates for three other statewide offices.
The Green candidates are Gary Blenner for Secretary of State, Dan Kapelovitz for Attorney General, and Laura Wells for Controller.
The PFP candidates are John Parker for U.S. Senate, Meghann Adams for Treasurer, and Nathalie Hrizi for Insurance Commissioner.
Further meetings of the two parties will probably make endorsements for Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
It is extremely unlikely that any of these candidates will qualify for the November ballot, due to the top-two system.
The Green Party acted in its October 26 meeting, and PFP acted at its November 14-15 meeting. These endorsements have no effect on the appearance of the June 2022 primary ballot, but this cooperation enhances the chances that each party will poll at least 2% of the vote in the June primary, and thereby retain their ballot status (although each party now has enough registrations to retain qualified status, regardless of the vote totals). Of course, there is nothing stopping other members of those two parties from also running for the various statewide offices, but such other individuals would not have the endorsement of either party. Thanks to Kevin Akin for this news.
The Independent Party of West Virginia has decided not to sue the West Virginia Secretary of State to gain recognition as a qualified party. The definition of a qualified party in West Virginia is a group that got at least 1% for Governor. Gubernatorial elections are in presidential years. In 2020, the Independent Party nominated S. Marshall Wilson for Governor. At the time he was an independent state legislator. He petitioned to be on the ballot for Governor, but partly due to covid, his petition did not succeed.
Then he ran as a write-in candidate, and polled 15,120 votes, which was 1.93% of the total vote cast. The question arose, as to whether his write-in total should be used to recognize the Independent Party. The Secretary of State declined to recognize the party, because of the belief that there was no party organization in existence at the time of the election. The party was organized at that time, and accumulated evidence for a possible lawsuit to gain recognition. But now, a year after the election, the party has decided not to sue. Wilson himself is no longer in the legislature (he didn’t run for re-election, because he was running for Governor) and has lost interest in the Independent Party.
Andrew Yang has a podcast, and on November 11, he hosted Lee Drutman for an hour and seven minutes. Here is a link to the Yang podcasts. To hear Drutman, choose “All politics is tribal”, which is currently second from the top. Drutman is a political scientist and a supporter of proportional representation for the United States; he is also the author of “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: the case for Multiparty Democracy in America.”
Yang supports top-five primaries. At the 44 minute mark, he said to Drutman that because the movement for proportional representation for the U.S. seems so slow, perhaps Drutman agrees that it is better at this time to work for top-five primaries. But Drutman said “no”, and that it would make things worse. Drutman said we should eliminate primaries. He also said that it is socially useful to give parties control over whom they nominate.
This conversation is very important. Kudos to Yang for hosting Drutman, and kudos to Drutman for his message.
On November 10, Wyoming filed this brief in Frank v Lee, 21-8059. This is the lawsuit that bars First Amendment activity, including petitioning, within 300 feet of a polling place. The U.S. District Court had invalidated it. Generally courts allow such zones if they are at 100 feet, but don’t allow anything bigger.