On May 24, groups associated with the Michigan Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in federal court. It alleges that Michigan violated the U.S. Constitution when it repealed the straight-ticket device. Michigan State A. Philip Randolph Institute v Johnson, e.d., 2:16cv-11844.
On May 26, a PPIC Poll was released for California races, including U.S. Senate. The Senate results: Kamala Harris 27%, Loretta Sanchez 19%, Tom Del Beccaro 8%, Ron Unz 6%, Duf Sundheim 3%, someone else 6%, don’t know 31%. Scroll down to Question 13.
Harris and Sanchez are both Democrats; the other three listed in the Poll are Republicans. This poll mirrors others that have suggested the November race will have only two Democrats on the ballot, with no write-in space.
On May 22, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed SF 2985, which establishes presidential primaries in future years. All ballot-qualified parties could have a presidential primary. However, the date would be set by the two parties that polled the largest vote for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. If they don’t agree on a date, then the primary would be on the first Tuesday in March.
Minnesota does not have registration by party. Normally, a Minnesota voter decides in secret which party’s primary ballot to use. But for presidential primaries, voters would need to publicly ask for a particular ballot, and a record would be made.
Pesidential primary candidates would get on the ballot at the sole discretion of the political party. No other state has such a provision, although Georgia and Florida are very similar. In all three states, persons not approved by certain party or legislative leaders would have no option to get on the primary ballot.
On May 24, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced the “Presidential Tax Transparency Act”. It requires the U.S. Treasury to release copies of the tax returns of presidential candidates to the Federal Election Commission. Then, the FEC would release them to the public. See this story.
The bill would only apply to the presidential nominees of a party that polled at least 25% of the popular vote in the last presidential election.
Although California abolished write-in space in November for Congress and partisan state office, it still allows write-ins in the primary for those offices. Under the top-two system, minor parties sometimes have members who file for write-in status in the primary, in races in which only one person filed to be on the primary ballot. The write-in filing deadline was May 24.
It appears that four Libertarian candidates are guaranteed to come in second in June, because they filed as write-in candidates and no other write-in candidate filed. Therefore these four will appear on the November ballot. They are: (1) State Senate 33rd, Los Angeles County, Mimi Robson; (2) Assembly First, northeast California, Donn Coenen; (3) Assembly Second, north coast, Kenneth Anton; (4) Assembly 51st, Los Angeles, Mike Everling.
