Kentucky and Mississippi are the only two states that elect Governors this year. According to this story, an independent candidate will try to collect the 5,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot for Governor of Kentucky. The signatures are due August 11.

The candidate’s name was Terrill Newman, but on March 31 he legally changed his name to Gatewood Galbraith. The original Gatewood Galbraith died in 2012, but he had quite a following when he ran for Governor outside the two major parties in recent past Kentucky elections. In 2011 he polled 74,860 votes (9.0%) as an independent. In 1999 he was the Reform Party nominee and polled 88,930 votes (15.3%).

The new Gatewood Galbraith says he respects the legacy of the original Galbraith, and will try to carry on Galbraith’s platform and ideas.

On the evening of April 6 (Monday), C-SPAN will air 90 minutes of Independent Voting’s morning panel of March 14, 2015. That C-SPAN program will air at 9:30 pm, eastern time. On the evening of April 7, at 10:40 pm, eastern time, C-SPAN will air the afternoon panel.

The morning panel included Paul Johnson (former Mayor of Phoenix), Joan Blades (founder of Moveon.org), Dr. Lenora Fulani, and Tio Hardiman, who ran for Illinois Governor in the Democratic primary last year.

The afternoon panel had Johnson, Rob Richie of Fairvote, John Opdycke of IndependentVoting, Chad Peace of the California Independent Voters Project, Harry Kresky of IndependentVoting, and Michael Hardy of IndependentVoting.

The leaders of IndependentVoting, for the most part, were once leaders of the New Alliance Party.

On April 2, U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon ruled against the Virginia Republican 24th Senatorial District Committee, in its lawsuit that sought the right to nominate by convention this year, instead of by primary. Virginia law says normally a qualified party can decide whether to nominate by primary or convention. But when the party has an incumbent who is running for re-election, he or she can override the party’s wishes and determine the nomination method.

The local party committee that filed the lawsuit wants to use a convention, but the incumbent State Senator wants a primary. The decision does not reach the merits of the dispute. Instead, it finds that the state party rules themselves do not give the local committees the right to challenge the state law. The state party rules say, “The Legislative District Committee shall determine whether candidates for Legislative District public office shall be nominated by Mass Meeting, Party Canvass, Convention or Primary, where permitted to do so under Virginia law.” The existence of those last eight words, according to the ruling, means that the state party wants the local parties to follow state law. Therefore, the state party presumably does not want the legislative district committees to challenge state law.

The decision also points out that the state Republican Party did not intervene in this lawsuit to suggest that its rules mean anything different. The case is Adams v Alcorn, w.d., 5:15cv-12.