Michael Feinstein has this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, advocating proportional representation for California.
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California permits write-ins in the June primary for all office. Every election year, there are a few legislative races in which only one person filed to be on the primary ballot. So then anyone who files as a write-in is guaranteed to place second, assuming the write-in candidate is the only declared write-in candidate.
For the 2018 primary, there are three Assembly districts in which Libertarians filed as write-ins, and there is only one candidate on the primary ballot, so the three Libertarians will place second and be on the November ballot. They are Justin Quigley in the 21st district (running against incumbent Adam Gray); Christopher Stare in the 51st district (running against incumbent Wendy Carrillo); and Autumn Browne in the 69th district (running against incumbent Tom Daly). Here is the entire list of declared write-in candidates for all federal and state office in the 2018 primary.
As already reported, on May 18 a U.S. District Court struck down New York state’s ban on out-of-state petitioners. The state has filed a request with the court that the ban remain in place until November 2018. That, of course, would make it more difficult for the nominees of unqualified parties to get on the ballot this year. The petitioning period for general election petitioning does not begin until July 2018. The plaintiff Libertarian Party has asked the court to let the decision goes into effect immediately.
This Washington Post story reports that there are no Republican candidates for districtwide partisan office this year in the District of Columbia. Although the reporter interviewed Republican Party officials, the story didn’t say whether the party plans to nominate some candidates after the June primary or not.
The Democratic National Committee is working on the 2020 presidential primary and caucus schedule. Earlier this month the party said the February schedule would be: February 3 Iowa; February 11 New Hampshire; February 15 Nevada; February 22 South Carolina.
Then, the party said that it was a mistake to schedule Nevada caucuses only four days later than the New Hampshire primary, and that the Nevada date would move to a later date. New Hampshire does not like any delegate selection processes to be as close as only four days after New Hampshire. Thanks to frontloading.blogspot.com for this news.