Last month, the Independent Party became a ballot-qualified party in Louisiana. It became a party by showing that over 1,000 voters are registered as members of the party, and by the state officers paying a filing fee of $1,000. The Independent Party has no connection to any third party in any other state. It is a centrist party. See this story. Thanks to Randall Hayes for the link.

The Independent Party of California tried to do exactly the same thing in California, but the California Secretary of State refused to even tell the California county election officials to provide a tally of how many Californians are registered in the Independent Party.

Here is the final brief in State ex rel Fockler v Husted, filed on January 9 by the Libertarians who sponsored the Johnson-Weld petition last year. The issue is whether the group’s presidential candidate having received over 3% of the vote in November 2016 creates a new party. The case is based on the language of the statute itself. This is a case of statutory construction, not constitutionality.

On November 8, 2016, Puerto Rico voters elected Ricardo Rossello as Governor, and elected Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon as Resident Commissioner. “Resident Commissioner” is the Puerto Rico term for the delegate sent to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both are nominees of the New Progressive Party, which favors statehood. Governor Rossello plans to work for legislation that would enable Puerto Rico voters to hold elections for two U.S. Senate seats and five U.S. House seats. That would probably involve a districting plan to create five U.S. House districts. Puerto Rico’s population would entitle it to five seats if it were a state.

Commissioner Gonzalez-Colon, the first woman to represent Puerto Rico in the U.S. House, has already introduced HR 260, to begin the process for statehood. The text of the measure is still not on the web page for Congress. The bill was introduced January 4, 2017.