California Assemblymember Frank Bigelow has decided not to advance his AB 372 this calendar year. This is the bill that says write-in candidates for Congress and partisan state office who place second in the June primary (and thereby have a constitutional right to be on the November ballot) must pay a filing fee after the primary is over.
California has two-year sessions, so he might try to advance the bill in 2016, but he won’t this year.
On May 7, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party of Arizona asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the April 2015 decision in Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 13-16254. The issue is the voter registration form, which gives the two largest parties a checkbox but requires voters who wish to register into any other qualified party to write-in the name of that party in the “other” line. The Ninth Circuit had this is only a trivial burden and upheld it on the basis of saving money.
On May 7, the California Republican Party notified a U.S. District Court that its trademark infringement lawsuit has been settled. The Asian American Small Business PAC had put the well-known stylized elephant logo on some campaign literature. Although the campaign literature was ostensibly issued in support of a Republican candidate for State Senate in a special election, the Republican Party did not support that candidate, who was the only Republican on the ballot. The Republican candidate herself had stopped campaigning and did not want voters to vote for her. The Asian American Small Business PAC, it was believed, actually supported one particular Democrat in the race, and wanted to persuade Republican voters to vote for the Republican so they would be less likely to vote for another Democrat in the race who is more conservative.
The case is California Republican Party v Asian American Small Business PAC, e.d., 2:15cv-505. There is little case law on whether trademark law protects political party names and symbols. The details of the settlement will not be made public, but it is likely the PAC paid the Republican Party some money in order to have the case dismissed.
The British election returns for the May 7 House of Commons election show these results:
Conservatives won 50.8% of the seats with 37% of the popular vote.
Labour won 35.6% of the seats with 31% of the popular vote.
Scottish National Party won 8.6% of the seats with 5% of the popular vote.
Liberal Democratic Party won 1.3% of the seats with 8% of the popular vote.
Plaid Cymru won .5% of the seats with 1% of the popular vote.
UKIP won .2% of the seats with 13% of the popular vote.
Greens won .2% of the seats with 4% of the popular vote.
others won 2.9% of the seats with 1% of the popular vote.
The discrepancy between percentage of seats won, versus share of the national popular vote, is so extreme (especially in the case of UKIP and the Liberal Democratic Party), that there will be increased interest in Britain for proportional representation. Here is a news story about the election returns. UPDATE: this news story says that UKIP, and the Green Party, will now work hard to create support for proportional representation.
Mhairi Black, a 20-year-old student, has been elected to the British House of Commons. She is the Scottish National Party nominee. See this story, which says she is the youngest member since 1667.
