The next Republican presidential debate will be sponsored by CNN. It will be September 16 at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California. The top ten candidates will share one stage (who may not necessarily be the same ten candidates as in the August Fox debate). Candidates who aren’t in the top ten, but who are at 1% or more in the polls, will be in a separate debate. Just now, six candidates seem likely to be in the secondary debate, but there is time for others to be added. See this story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On August 11, the Mississippi Secretary of State informed the American Freedom Party that it is now a ballot-qualified party. The American Freedom Party was formerly known as American Third Position. It ran Merlin Miller for president in 2012. Miller was not on the ballot in Mississippi in 2012.

Miller himself left the American Freedom Party last year. The 2016 presidential nominee of the American Freedom Party is Bob Whitaker.

This is old news, but it has just come to my attention. In 2000 Ralph Nader won a federal lawsuit against South Dakota’s June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. Nader v Hazeltine, 110 F Supp 2d 1201. The court said June is too early for presidential independents. The state did not appeal, and in 2001 passed Senate Bill 7, moving the deadline for presidential independents from June to the first Tuesday in August.

However, in 2012, the legislature passed HB 1182. The intent of that bill was to move the non-presidential independent deadline from June to April. However, HB 1182 apparently accidentally repealed the sentence at the end of section 12-7-1 that had set an August deadline for presidential independents. There is no longer any separate law governing independent presidential petition deadlines. Technically, the law now says the independent presidential deadline is in April. But since even June was too early, it is obvious that April is also unconstitutional. It is not known what position the Secretary of State will take. Already South Dakota is being sued for having a too-early petition deadline for new parties.