Dan Robinson, a former city councilmember of Takoma Park, Maryland, has filed as a Green Party nominee for the lower house of the legislature this year. See this story. The districts elects three members. Thanks to Michael for the link.
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On May 23, the Oklahoma legislature made a surprise decision to adjourn that very day, a week before the expected adjournment date. Therefore, HB 2134, the ballot access bill, did not pass. Even though it had passed both houses of the legislature, the two houses passed different versions. The conference committee had met and agreed on final wording, but there was no opportunity for each house to vote on the revised bill. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
On May 23, the California Senate Appropriations Committee passed SCA 16 on a party line vote of 5-2. The measure would eliminate special elections when a vacancy occurs in the state legislature. The Governor would appoint a new legislator. The measure needs a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature, and if it passes, it would go on the November 2016 ballot, since it is a proposed constitutional amendment.
On May 23, an Arkansas Circuit Court again ruled that the Arkansas law requiring voters at the polls to show government photo ID violates the State Constitution. See this story. This time, his decision does not suffer from the procedural flaw that affected the same court’s first ruling. The new decision is Kohls v Martin, an ACLU case. The judge stayed his own decision, because the state says it will appeal.
The first decision was Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners v Pulaski County Election Commission. That decision had been reversed by the State Supreme Court on May 14, because neither side in that case had asked that the voter ID law be declared unconstitutional. The new case doesn’t suffer from that impediment.
In 2010, Alabama voters elected an independent State Senator, Harri Anne Smith. She had been a Republican before she was an independent, but she was denied a spot on the Republican primary ballot because she had endorsed a Democrat two years earlier for Congress, so she got re-elected as an independent. According to this story, she is running for re-election as an independent in 2014 as well.