Solomon Yue, a member of the Republican Party’s Rules Committee, wants the convention to use Robert’s Rules of Order. See this story. Using Robert’s Rules of Order would give more power to individual delegates and less power to Paul Ryan, who will be presiding over the convention. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On April 12, Tricia Weathers, a registered Libertarian, was elected to the Box Elder, South Dakota city council. This is thought to be the first time any member of a party other than the Democratic or Republican Parties has won an election in South Dakota for at least 80 years. Thanks to Paul Frankel for this news.
New Mexico holds primaries, including presidential primaries, for the Democratic and Republican Parties on June 7. According to this story, the Secretary of State has confirmed that 17-year-olds who will be age 18 by November 8 can vote in those primaries. The legislature passed a bill permitting them to do this earlier this year, but there had been uncertainty about whether the new law applies to this year’s primaries. Thanks to Douglas Carver for the link.
On April 13, the Independent Voters Project filed this amicus curiae brief in Level the Playing Field v FEC, one of the two pending lawsuits that seeks to open up the general election presidential debates to more than just the Republican and Democratic nominees.
On April 14, the Kentucky Libertarian Party, and the Kentucky Constitution Party, filed this reply brief in Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Grimes, e.d., 3:15cv-86. The lawsuit challenges the Kentucky ballot access laws for new and minor parties. Kentucky is one of eleven states that doesn’t have a procedure for a group to transform itself into a qualified party in advance of any particular election. In addition, Kentucky is one of only two states which applies a vote test to determine if a group polled enough votes to qualify for party status, but only counts the presidential vote, not the vote for any other office.
