This Boston Globe article says that filing has now closed for candidates running in Massachusetts primaries this year, and in six of the state’s nine U.S. House districts, no Republican filed.

Although the article is fairly lengthy, and tries to explain why this happened, the article never mentions the real cause, which is that Massachusetts ballot access for primaries is the most restrictive in the nation. Massachusetts requires 2,000 signatures for a candidate to get on a primary ballot for U.S. House, more than any other state (for primaries).

This article in the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, says that 2004 Constitution Party presidential nominee Michael Peroutka recently donated a 30 foot long Allosaurus skeleton to the Creation Museum. The skeleton is valued anywhere from $200,000 to $1,000,000. The article explains how Peroutka came to own the skeleton.

Peroutka polled 143,630 votes for President in 2004. That was the party’s third best presidential vote total; the only ones that were higher were 1996 and 2008.

On July 6, former U.S. Senator Alan Dixon (D-Illinois) died at 86. See this obituary. Senator Dixon was the most persistent advocate of federal legislation setting up regional presidential primaries. He introduced such bills in 1987 (S.1786), 1989 (S.377), and 1991 (S.288). The bills would have divided up the United States into presidential primary regions. Each state within a region would hold presidential primaries on the same date, between March and June. The dates for each region would alternate and be set in the year before a presidential election year.

Senator Dixon was defeated in the Democratic primary for re-nomination in 1992, and since then no member of Congress has energetically worked for the idea, although variants of bill have been introduced since then, most recently in 2007.

Unlike some plans, Senator Dixon’s bills did not give favored exemptions for any particular state, including New Hampshire.