Cosmopolitan Magazine has this article by Mindy Finn, the vice-presidential nominee who ran in 2016 as an independent with Evan McMullin. The article doesn’t say much about her vice-presidential run, but instead focuses on the need for more woman candidates for important elected office.
The San Francisco Chronicle has this story about Tom Palzer’s California initiative to repeal the top-two system. When Palzer had first announced his initiative, the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee had carried stories about it, but this is the first time the San Francisco Chronicle has mentioned it.
The U.S. Supreme Court considered whether to hear Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky at its October 6 conference, but when the results of that conference were revealed on October 10, the Court had not acted on that case. It will be considered again at a future conference. The issue is a Minnesota law that makes it illegal for a voter at the polls to wear anything relating to politics.
It is already established law that voters can be barred from wearing something at the polls that expresses a point of view about some race on the ballot, but the Minnesota goes further. One of the plaintiffs was wearing something that referred to the Tea Party, but the Tea Party was not on the ballot. The lower courts had upheld the Minnesota law.
On October 10, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Martin v Moore, 17-156. This is the case in which the Eighth Circuit had said the March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidate petitions is too early, unless the state of Arkansas can demonstrate that the deadline is essential for the state to have enough time to check the validity of such petitions.
Arkansas state officials had then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Eighth Circuit, and uphold the March petition deadline. Arkansas’ main argument in the U.S. Supreme Court had been that the plaintiff-candidate, Mark Moore, had not tried to petition and therefore he doesn’t have standing.
It will be interesting to see if the state now returns to the U.S. District Court and tries to prove that it can’t check the signatures unless they are submitted by March, or whether the state just gives up on the case. The Arkansas legislature is not in session but it will be in January 2018.
According to this story, Greg Orman is taking steps to run for Governor of Kansas as an independent in 2018. In 2014 he was an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, and he polled 42.5% in a race with no Democrat running.
After the 2014 election, he said he probably would have been better off if a Democrat had run, because with no Democrat in the race, his Republican opponent painted him as a Democrat in disguise.
