Attorneys for the Secretary of State of Michigan have notified the U.S. Supreme Court that the state expects to file a response to the Michigan Libertarian Party’s brief in Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson, 13-421. The state says it needs more time, and obtained an extension to December 4 to file its brief. The Court has not agreed to hear this case; the briefs at this point are just involved with whether the Court should hear it.

The issue is whether the state should have kept Gary Johnson on the November 2012 ballot or not. The state removed him because his name had appeared on the ballot in the February 2012 Republican presidential primary. The lower courts agreed with the Secretary of State’s decision.

The Parthenon, student newspaper for Marshall University, has this editorial, suggesting that a new major party is overdue in the United States. Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, was founded in 1837.

Jim Jenkins, of Callaway, Nebraska, has announced that he will be an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 2014. See this story. He had planned to run as an independent in 2012, but a state law barred him because he had been registered as a Democrat in the recent past. There is no incumbent in the 2014 Senate race. So far no Democrat has announced. Nebraska has not had an independent candidate on the ballot for U.S. Senate since 2002.