U.S. District Court Lawrence Stengel will hear Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele on Monday, May 16, at 9:30 am. The issue is whether the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties should be put on the ballot with no more petitioning, given that the existing law has been held unconstitutional and the state legislature has not replaced the old law. The federal courthouse is at 601 Market Street, Philadelphia, courtroom 14B. The hearing is at 9:30 a.m.
The California delegation to the Republican national convention in Cleveland has been assigned to stay at Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. The resort is 58 miles west of the site of the convention, Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland.
The party has contracted with a bus company to supply transportation for the delegates and alternates between the hotel and the convention. Every trip, for the entire group, costs $15,000.
The initiative to remove party labels from California ballots for Congress and partisan state office will not qualify for the ballot in 2016.
On April 27, the Maine Supreme Court refused the Secretary of State’s appeal in Birks v Dunlap, so the lower court opinion stands. The lower court had ruled that the Secretary of State was wrong to invalidate tens of thousands of signatures on the initiative to legalize marijuana. The issue was whether petition sheets should be invalidated because the Notary Public’s signature on the sheet doesn’t closely match the Notary’s signature on the Notary’s application to be a Notary.
The lower court said there are many reasons why an individual’s signature doesn’t always look the same. See this story.
Austria held a presidential election on April 24. No one got 50%, so there will be a run-off on May 22. See this wikipedia article about the election. The two candidates in the run-off are Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party, and Alexandier Van der Belle of the Green Party. Austria’s President is the head of state, but not head of government, and therefore not the most powerful office-holder.
