Free & Equal will host a general election presidential debate on August 30, 2016, at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles. In 2012 Free & Equal also hosted a general election debate, which was moderated by Larry King. At the 2012 debate, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Virgil Goode, and Rocky Anderson participated. The PBS news show, the Jim Lehrer Hour, broadcast five minutes of the debate.
On October 5, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a referendum should be put on the ballot in the town of Derry. The town council passed a budget that was unpopular. Opponents of the budget then successfully obtained enough signatures to put the budget on the ballot. The town council then refused to authorize an election, so opponents of the budget sued. The Supreme Court and the Superior Court both agreed with the referendum proponents that the measure should be on the ballot. The town council had argued that state law doesn’t permit such referenda for towns with a town-council form of government. The case is Chirichiello v Town of Derry, number 2015-0566 in the Supreme Court, and 218-2015-cv-871 in the lower court.
Scotusblog has listed Rubin v Padilla as a “petition to watch”. See here. Rubin v Padilla is the California minor party lawsuit that argues that California’s top-two system injures voting rights in the general election. Thanks to Bob Richard for this news.
Maine requires a group that wishes to become a qualified party to obtain 5,000 registered members. This requirement was created in 2013, and replaced the old, very difficult 5% petition that had been in the law starting in 1976. The Maine Libertarian Party has been carrying on a voter registration drive for the last six months, and now has over 5,000 registrations, although they have not all yet been submitted to election officials. The drive is continuing with a goal of 6,000, for safety.
The last time the Libertarian Party was a qualified party in Maine was 1991-1992. Currently the Green Party is ballot-qualified in Maine. The Reform Party was also a ballot-qualified party in Maine in the 1990’s, but before that Maine hadn’t had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Republican and Democratic Parties since the 1910’s decade.
On September 16, Emma Wong Mar died in Oakland, California. She was 89. She was the Peace & Freedom Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 1984, and was the first Asian-American to appear on a general election ballot for President or Vice-President.
Her running mate in 1984 was Sonia Johnson. Johnson’s vice-presidential nominee in other states was Richard Walton, but in California the ticket was comprised of Johnson and Mar. Thanks to Jed Ziggler for this news.
