On September 8, U.S. District Court Judge Glenn T. Suddaby, a Bush Jr. appointee, struck down a New York state campaign finance law that lets qualified parties give more money to their nominees than unqualified parties may give. Upstate Jobs Party v Kosinski, n.d., 6:18cv-459. Here is the 70-page Opinion. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.

The Upstate Jobs Party is active in upstate New York, and has had several nominees during the last five years, but it has never been a qualified party. It has never run a candidate for statewide office, so under the narrow definition of a qualified party in New York, no matter how much support it has, it can never be a qualified party until it does decide to run statewide candidates.

This Politico story says that Andrew Yang intends to start a new political party. Yang is publishing a book, “Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy” on October 5, and the story says the book will explain more about the new party. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.

On September 6, Adlai E. Stevenson III died at the age of 90. See this lengthy New York Times obituary. He was a former Democratic U.S. Senator, and the Democratic nominee for Governor of Illinois in both 1982 and 1986. In the 1986 race, however, the Lieutenant Governor nominee who emerged from the Democratic primary was a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche. In Illinois, parties have separate primaries for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. But in the general election, they run as a team.

Stevenson resigned from the Democratic ticket rather than run in November in tandem with a LaRouche supporter. That left the Democratic Party with no nominee for Governor and Mark Fairchild for Lieutenant Governor. That ticket of no one plus Fairchild received 6% of the vote. If it had received less than 5%, the Democratic Party would have ceased to be a qualified party in Illinois.

Stevenson then formed a new party, the Illinois Solidarity Party, and ran as its gubernatorial nominee, polling 40.0%. That made the Illinois Solidarity Party the first fully ballot-qualified third party in Illinois since 1924. The legislature, which had a Democratic majority, passed a bill to let a qualified party cease to exist, because after the 1986 election was over Stevenson had no use for the Solidarity Party. But Republican Governor Jim Thompson vetoed the bill, so the Solidarity Party remained ballot-qualified for the 1988 and 1990 elections. Activists from the New Alliance Party captured it, so that it nominated Lenora Fulani for president in 1988.