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.
The Alaska Democratic Party passed a bylaw at its state convention earlier this month, letting registered independents file for office in the Democratic primary. See this story. Thanks to Richard Grayson for the link.
Brian Doherty has this Reason article on the two pending lawsuits involving inclusion in the general election presidential debates.
Here is a link to the Washington state presidential primary returns for the Democratic Party. The primaries were held May 24. The Democratic results have no binding effect, because the Democratic Party used caucuses to choose delegates.
Here is a link to the Republican results.
