This story says that the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee expects to ask the Jill Stein for president campaign to turn over certain documents from the 2016 election. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
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According to this story in the Orange County Register, California Democrats have high hopes of winning some U.S. House seats in Orange County, where four Republican incumbents might conceivably be vulnerable. However, there are 25 Democrats running in those four districts, and because of the top-two system, there is some possibility that in one or more districts, two Republicans might place first and second, because there are so many Democrats that they will split up the Democratic primary vote.
Most of the story concerns a discussion of what happens if there is a tie vote, but that subject is barely worth discussing, because the odds of a tie in a race in which hundreds of thousands of votes are cast is overwhelmingly unlikely.
The Green Mountain Party is now a qualified party in Vermont. See this story. It is not associated with any political party outside Vermont.
On December 18, Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski completely retired from judicial service. He had been appointed in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. He wrote only one ballot access case during his career, Peta Lindsay v Debra Bowen, 750 F.3d 1061 (2014). The issue was whether it was lawful for California’s Secretary of State to exclude Peta Lindsay from the Peace & Freedom presidential primary ballot in 2012. Lindsay was age 27 and the U.S. Constitution says no one can serve as president who is under age 35.
During the oral argument, Kozinski asked if the Peace & Freedom Party would be permitted to ask the Secretary of State to place a dog on its presidential primary ballot.
California state courts at that time had already ruled that the Secretary of State must place any qualified party’s presidential nominee on the general election ballot, regardless of questions about their qualifications. Also, California had placed the Prohibition Party’s vice-presidential nominee on the ballot in 1892, and he was under age 35. And, California had permitted Linda Jenness, the 1972 Socialist Workers Party presidential nominee who was also underage, to be a declared write-in presidential candidates. These facts were in the record, but they did not merit mention in Kozinski’s opinion.
Kozinski ruled against voting rights for ex-felons in an Arizona case in 2010, Harvey v Brewer, 605 F.3d 1017. The panel he was on ruled unanimously that Arizona could require ex-felons to pay various fees and restitution amounts before they were permitted to register to vote, notwithstanding the 24th amendment which outlaws poll taxes.
Here is the list of individuals who have filed to run in Texas 2018 primaries for the Republican and Democratic Parties. No Democrat filed for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8. This is a statewide partisan race, so any minor party nominee for that office is extremely likely to poll 5%, and thus gain or retain qualified party status. The Libertarian Party is the only other ballot-qualified party. It nominates by convention and a Libertarian is running for that judicial post. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
To use the list of Democratic and Republican candidates, note that all offices are in alphabetical order. To see the candidates for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8, scroll down into the part of the alphabet with the letter “J”.
In 2016, Democrats nominated someone for each statewide post. As a result, the Libertarian Party barely kept its qualified status. It polled under 5% for all 2016 statewide races except Railroad Commissioner, for which it polled 5.28%. No Green statewide nominee in 2016 polled as much as 5%, so the Green Party went off the ballot.