Recently, the Michigan branch of the Constitution Party filed a lawsuit in the State Court of Claims to be allowed to change its name from the U.S. Taxpayers Party to the Constitution Party. Brandenburg v Brader, mv25-000052-mz.

The 1999 national convention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party voted to change the name of the party to the Constitution Party. All the states in which the U.S. Taxpayers Party was on the ballot allowed the party to change its name to the Constitution Party, except that Michigan did not. Also the California and Nevada affiliates of the party did not wish to change their name. In those two states, the party had never been called the U.S. Taxpayers Party (it was Independent American in Nevada, and American Independent in California).

Most states have no law on the subject of whether a party can change its name, and yet generally states do allow qualified parties to change their name. States that have allowed qualified parties to change their name in the last eighty years are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia.

States that have laws letting parties change their name are Minnesota, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. Also New York lets a party change its name in a brief window after it first qualifies.

Matthew Yglesias cuts through the rind and gets to the melon with this post stating that the best answer to the gerrymandering problem is proportional representation.

Before every presidential election, the two major parties try to influence the calendar of presidential primaries and caucuses for the upcoming election. The Democratic National Committee will meet August 25-27 in Minneapolis and will work on its hopes for the calendar. Of course, it is not easy for parties to influence the calendar, because government-administered presidential primary dates are set by state legislatures.