The New York Daily News has this interview with Mark Cuban, who is mulling over running for president as an independent candidate. He is owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and has other businesses.
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On March 4, the New York State Democratic Committee passed a resolution in opposition to fusion. Now the party is expected to try to persuade the legislature to ban fusion. See this story. Thanks to Joe Burns for the link.
UPDATE: also see this article, which has more detail and reveals that approximately 80% of the vote was against fusion.
On March 4, the North Carolina State Board of Elections set dates for the re-do of the U.S. House of Representatives election for the 9th district. The primary will be May 14. If any party needs a run-off primary, the run-off primary will be September 10, and the election will be November 5. If no party needs a run-off primary, then the election will be September 10.
These dates are not identical to the dates for the special election for the 3rd district. Those dates are April 30, July 9, and September 10.
On March 1, New Mexico HB 407, the omnibus election law bill that is almost 500 pages long, passed the House Judiciary Committee. It had previously passed the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. Among other provisions, it lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates. Currently all independent candidates need a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The bill lowers the number of signatures for non-presidential independents to 2%, and lowers the independent presidential petition to match the number of signatures needed for minor party presidential candidates. That provision is somewhat puzzling, because qualified minor parties in New Mexico don’t need any signatures for their presidential nominee, although they do need signatures for their other nominees.
Anne-Marie Slaughter has this article in Financial Times, about Howard Schultz and also about Americans who tell pollsters that they favor a new major party. She points to data that shows the voters who say they want a new party are wildly divergent from each other.