New York hold a special election on April 19 for Assembly, 65th district, in Manhattan. Four parties have nominees: Democratic, Republican, Working Families, and Green. On April 8 the New York Times endorsed the Working Families Party nominee, Yuh-Line Niou.
On March 30, filing closed in South Carolina for candidates seeking the nomination of a qualified party for Congress, state office, and local partisan office. Besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, these parties will have some nominees for those offices: American, Constitution, Green, Independence, and Libertarian.
All of those parties will nominate by convention. However, South Carolina election law requires candidates seeking a convention nomination to file in advance of the conventions, just as candidates running in a major party primary file. Here is a link to the State Election Commission web page that has the list of candidates.
Bill Bledsoe is seeking the nomination of both the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party for U.S. Senate. South Carolina permits fusion. However, the law says a candidate seeking the nomination of two parties must win both of those nominations, or he or she can’t run in November at all.
The American Party has contested nominations for both U.S. Senate and U.S. House, 5th district.
Qualified parties that will have no nominees this year (unless they nominate someone for President later in the year) are the Labor, United Citizens, and Working Families Parties.
On April 8, an Alaska state court heard oral arguments in Alaska Democratic Party v State, 1ju-16-533. The Democratic Party had filed this lawsuit on February 22, 2016, saying it wants the ability to let independent candidates seek the Democratic Party nomination. State law says no one except a party member can run for a party nomination.
At the hearing, the state mostly argued the lawsuit should be dismissed on the grounds that the party hasn’t yet changed its bylaws to express the party’s position. The party responds that is because the bylaws can only be changed at the convention, which is in May, and if the lawsuit must wait, that will make it difficult to implement the new policy in time for the August 2016 primary. See this story.
On April 8, the Utah Supreme Court released this five-page opinion in Utah Republican Party v Cox, 2016-0077. It interprets Utah election law to mean that a qualified party must allow candidates into its primary if they submit a petition. The Utah Republican Party had argued that the party has a right to ignore such petitions, and only to allow candidates onto its primary ballot who show substantial support at a party meeting.
The Utah Supreme Court declined to answer the other question that had been posed to it. That other question was what should happen to the Republican Party’s status as a qualified party if it still refuses to accept petition candidates. The Court says it won’t answer that question because it is hypothetical. The Court clearly hopes and expects that the Republican Party will now change its bylaws and permit both types of candidate to run, petition candidates and caucus candidates. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On April 8, the Field Poll released a new poll for the June 2016 primary election in California for U.S. Senate. It shows: Kamala Harris 27%; Loretta Sanchez 14%; Ron Unz 5%; Tom Del Beccaro 4%; Duf Sundheim 2%; undecided or other 49%. Harris and Sanchez are Democrats; the other three are Republicans.
There are 34 candidates on the ballot, but the Polling Company did not mention the other choices to respondents. The race has seven Democrats, twelve Republicans, two Libertarians, one Green, one Peace & Freedom Party member, and eleven candidates who are either registered as independents or as members of unqualified parties. Current law does not allow the ballot to mention the party affiliations of the candidates from unqualified parties. A lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on whether the members of unqualified parties should have their party label on the ballot.
