Patrick Caldwell has this article in Mother Jones on the upcoming recount for Virginia Attorney General. The article says that Bush v Gore may influence the proceedings. The article also says that the Sixth Circuit is the only circuit that has used Bush v Gore. Actually, the Ninth Circuit also used it to settle an election dispute in the Northern Mariana Islands, in 2001, in Charfauros v Board of Elections.
Venture capitalist Jeffrey S. McCormick announced last month that he will run for Governor of Massachusetts in 2014 as an independent. See this story. He is backed by Joe Malone, a former Republican who was elected Treasurer of Massachusetts in 1990 and re-elected in 1994. Malone recently left the Republican Party and became an independent.
Evan Falchuk is also running for Governor of Massachusetts outside the two major parties. He has been campaigning since July and he expects to be on the November 2014 ballot as the nominee of his United Independent Party.
On November 20, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman spoke a Roanoke College. Among other things, he said emergence of a strong new political party would be beneficial to the United States, even if it wasn’t strong enough to win. See this story.
The Los Angeles times has this front-page story about Kshama Sawant. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the link.
Briefs are being filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, in Tuaua v United States, 13-5272. The government’s brief was filed on October 25 and the brief of the Samoans is due November 22. The issue is whether the U.S. Constitution provides for citizenship to people born in American Samoa. American Samoa is the only populated jurisdiction in the United States in which persons born there are not automatically citizens.
One of the plaintiffs now lives in Hawaii and another now lives in Washington state, but they are not able to register to vote in those states, because they are considered U.S. “nationals”, not citizens. Persons born in American Samoa can not be naturalized unless they leave Samoa. The U.S. District Court, in accordance with precedents going back to 1901, ruled that unorganized territories are not part of the United States, so the language in the 14th amendment conferring citizenship to persons born in the United States does not apply to Samoans. Congress has provided that persons born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam, are citizens, but Congress has never granted citizenship to Samoans.
See here for more information about the plaintiffs. American Samoa, since 1978, has elected a Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
