Earlier this year, the Mississippi legislature passed SB 2167. It requires general election presidential candidates to pay a fee of $2,500, whether they are independents or the nominees of qualified parties. The bill was signed into law April 6, 2016, and took effect July 1, 2016.
Presidential nominees of qualified parties can avoid the fee if they submit 1,000 signatures.
The bill passes the Senate 43-7 and passed the House 93-25. Thanks to Mark Dunlea for the news.
On August 13, the Peace & Freedom Party of California nominated Gloria LaRiva for president. In PFP’s 48 years of existence, this is the first time it has nominated the presidential nominee of a party with “socialist” or “socialism” in its name. LaRiva is also the presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
The vote was: La Riva 56, Monica Moorehead 12, Jill Stein 9, Lynn Kahn 1, abstain 2.
LaRiva is now almost certain to poll at least 50,000 votes in the nation for President. Assuming she does, she will be the first presidential candidate of a party with “socialist” or “socialism” in its name to exceed 50,000 votes nationally since the Socialist Workers Party 1976 campaign, when its nominee, Peter Camejo, polled 91,314 votes. Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for the state convention vote totals.
On August 13, the American Independent Party held its state convention in Sacramento, and nominated Donald Trump for President and Michael Pence for Vice-President. The California election code, section 13105(c), permits two qualified parties to jointly nominate the same presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The November ballot will list Trump and Pence, followed by “Republican, American Independent.”
The two parties will each nominate the same set of presidential elector candidates. California has 55 electoral votes. Probably the Republican Party will choose 50 and the AIP will choose five, and then both parties will submit the same list of presidential elector candidates. This will be the first time since 1940 that two parties in California jointly nominated the same presidential candidate.
On August 13, Hugh Hewitt spoke at the RedState Gathering in Denver. He advocated that open primaries be abolished. See this story. For more about Hewitt, see here. UPDATE: here is a Denver Post story about what various speakers at that meeting said about primaries and caucuses.
on August 12, both sides in the lawsuit Libertarian Party of Maine v Dunlap, the ballot access case, asked the judge to put the lawsuit on hold until December 15, 2016. This is the case in which the judge granted injunctive relief to the Libertarian Party, putting it on the ballot this year. Although the injunction was granted, there has been no decision on whether the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot is constitutional. Both sides say it would be a waste of the court’s time to spend any more time on the case this year, because probably the legislature will improve the law next year.
The chief issue in the case is the deadline for a new party to qualify, December of the year before the election. A side issue is whether voters should be able to register into an unqualified party and have those registrations tallied.
