Paula Jean Swearengin, who was the 2020 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate from West Virginia, has announced that she has left the Democratic Party and joined the People’s Party. She has been appointed state director for West Virginia for the Peoples Party.
Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pennsylvania) has introduced a bill to require that the Speaker of the House be an elected member of the House. The bill doesn’t have a bill number yet. Article II, section two of the U.S. Constitution says “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Offices” but does not say the House must choose a member. However, all speakers in history have been members of the House.
The presidential succession act says that if the president and vice-president both die, the Speaker shall become president.
The Maine legislative session for this year is over, and LD 231 did not pass. This is the bill to let independent voters vote in partisan primaries. Although it received affirmative votes in both houses of the legislature, afterwards it was placed on the Appropriations Table, which means it was held in abeyance until the state budget was passed.
The Maine legislature finalized the budget on July 19 and then went home for the year, and did not include money in the budget for the bill. It could theoretically pass next year.
The Arkansas Secretary of State has determined that the Libertarian Party 2022 party petition is valid. It had a validity rate of 81.4%. It required 10,000 signatures and the party submitted approximately 14,500.
The party needs to get 3% for Governor in November 2022 in order to remain on the ballot.
On July 20, Larry Elder filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Sacramento to get on the September 14 recall gubernatorial ballot. He had been excluded because he didn’t redact his Social Security number from his tax returns. Apparently this was an inadvertent error. His lawsuit argues that the Secretary of State had the authority to redact the number; alternatively, his failure to redact the number harms no one except himself. The lawsuit has a hearing July 21, Wednesday. Thanks to Frank Morano for this link, which is an interview with Elder, and which explains the situation near the beginning. UPDATE: here is Elder’s brief. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link to the brief.
