The June 30, 2017 voter registration data for the District of Columbia shows these percentages for each party: Democratic 76.15%; Republican 6.23%; Green .76%; Libertarian .20%; independent and other 16.66%.
As of November 2016, the percentages were: Democratic 76.06%; Republican 6.25%; Green .76%; Libertarian .19%; independent and other 16.74%.
On July 13 the California Assembly Elections Committee passed SB 149. It keeps candidates off the presidential primary ballots unless they release their federal income tax returns for the last five years. The bill had already passed the Senate. It now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Common Cause testified that the bill should be expanded to include gubernatorial candidates also, but that idea was not taken up by the committee. The vote was 4-2, with one abstention.
The bill has no effect on independent presidential candidates, nor on presidential candidates who are nominated by a ballot-qualified party but who had no involvement with the presidential primary in California.
It appears that California is the only state in which a bill forcing presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns, or suffer ballot access hurdles, will pass this year. The California Constitution requires that all presidential candidates that are mentioned in the news media must be put on presidential primary ballots automatically, unless they ask to have their names removed. Therefore it seems SB 149 violates the California Constitution.
The Epoch Times is a newspaper with circulation around the world, and is headquartered in New York city. Here is a lengthy and very favorable story about Rocky De La Fuente, who is currently seeking the Republican nomination for Mayor of New York city. The last part of the story does describe his presidential run in 2016.
Much of the article consists of an interesting biography of De La Fuente. He didn’t get any publicity when he ran for president that is as favorable as this story.
On July 13, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SCA12 by a vote of 4-1. It forces counties with a population greater than 5,000,000 to have at least seven supervisors. Currently all California counties are run by Boards of Supervisors that have only five members, except that San Francisco’s Board has eleven members.
If the bill is signed into law, it then goes on the ballot, because it amends the California Constitution.
Currently each Los Angeles County supervisor has almost 2,000,000 constituents.
The bill also forces counties with at least 5,000,000 population to elect a county executive.
The United Utah Party filed this brief on July 13, in its ballot access case, to try to get its U.S. House nominee on the ballot in the November 2017 special election. The hearing is July 14.
The brief discusses the much easier procedures in place for new parties, last time Utah had a special congressional election in 1930. Much of the evidence about the 1930 procedure came from the research of historian Darcy Richardson.
