On October 13, a debate will be held for the special U.S. House election, 3rd district. Participating are the nominees of the Republican, Democratiac, Libertarian, and United Utah Parties. The debate will be in a school auditorium in Sandy and will be televised. See here for more details. The four invited debates are John Curtis, Kathie Allen, Joe Buchman, and Jim Bennett.
“Count my vote”, a group that opposes convention nominations, will start to circulate an initiative petition very soon. The initiative would change the election law, to provide that party conventions would have no role in choosing party nominees. Instead, all qualified parties would nominate by primary. Currently Utah has a hybrid system in which candidates who have substantial support at party meetings become the nominee, unless someone else files a petition for the same office. Then, there is a primary. But most of the time, no such petitions are filed, and persons with support at party meetings never face a primary. See this story.
Roland McLean, a columnist for two newspapers in northwest Colorado, writes here that the U.S. needs more political parties.
The National Popular Vote Plan association has announced that it will make independent expenditures to defeat Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, who has blocked bills to pass the plan for two sessions of the legislature. See this story. He is a Democrat, and he is running for re-election next year.
Germany held a parliamentary election on September 24. The Green Party is expected to enter the new government, in coalition with the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democratic Party. According to this story, assuming Greens are in the government, the party will seek to implement its policy goals of phasing out use of coal, and making changes to how most automobiles are powered.
Here is the wikipedia page for the 2017 German election. Because Germany uses proportional representation, the Green Party, which polls less than 10% of the national vote, is still in a position to influence policy.
