The Reform Party national convention is proceeding in Bohemia, New York on July 30. Declared candidates for the party’s presidential nomination are addressing the meeting. They are Ken Cross, Rocky De La Fuente, Lynn Kahn (all appearing in person) and Darcy Richardson (by phone).
On July 29, the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties filed a notice of appeal to the Third Circuit, in their ballot access case. The appeal only relates to the portion of the U.S. District Court order that imposed a county distribution requirement on independent and minor party statewide petitions. The order only pertains to candidates for state office, not federal office. The offices affected this year are Treasurer, Auditor, and Attorney General. The order requires a certain number of signatures from each of ten counties.
County distribution requirements have been invalidated all over the country by federal courts, starting in 1969. Twice the U.S. Supreme Court has invalidated them, in cases from Illinois and New York. No state except Pennsylvania has any county distribution requirements for candidate petitions. Such requirements violate “one person, one vote”, because they give more power to voters living in small-population counties than in large-population counties.
Missouri Representative Keith English, elected in 2012 and 2014 as a Democrat, will run for re-election this year as an independent. He lives in Florissant. See this story.
After he voted to reduce the Missouri income tax, the Democratic legislative leadership removed him from his committee assignments. See the wikipedia page about him.
On July 29, a U.S. District Court in Wisconsin issued an opinion in One Wisconsin Institute v Thomsen, w.d. 15-cv-324. The opinion upholds the action of the legislature in 2011 in abolishing the straight-ticket device. There are many other issues in this case, and Wisconsin lost on most of the other points. Here is a copy of the decision. The Wisconsin court was aware that a U.S. District Court decision in Michigan last week had come to a contrary conclusion about straight-ticket devices.
For a discussion of the other issues in the case, here is a link to Rick Hasen’s blog post about the decision.
On July 29, the Green Party submitted its petition to be on the ballot for President in Vermont. See this story. Assuming the petition is valid, this will be the first time a Green Party presidential nominee has been on the Vermont ballot since 2000. In 2012 Jill Stein received 594 write-ins for President in Vermont.
