Kentucky has never before had an independent candidate for U.S. Senate on its ballots, in the 100 years that the state and the nation have been electing U.S. Senators by popular vote. But Ed Marksberry announced on September 22 that he will attempt to run as an independent for U.S. Senate next year. See this story. Marksberry has been active in the Democratic Party and is an environmentalist.
Recently the California legislature passed AB 857, the bill to require that statewide initiatives aren’t valid unless at least 10% of the signatures were collected by unpaid volunteers. On September 23, both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee editorialized that Governor Jerry Brown should veto the bill. Thanks to AroundtheCapitol for the links.
Utah is the only state in which no one can run in a partisan primary unless that candidate receives substantial support at a party endorsement meeting. An initiative is about to be launched in Utah to change that, so that anyone can gain a place on a primary ballot regardless of what happens at party meetings. Here is an op-ed by Bryan Hyde, supporting the present system.
The op-ed doesn’t address one of the strongest criticisms of the existing system, which is that some voters can’t attend a party meeting because they are temporarily away, or because they must work at the times and dates of these meetings, or because they don’t have transportation to the meetings. The same criticisms are sometimes made in Virginia, which permits any party to nominate entirely by convention instead of by primary. This year, the Virginia Republican Party nominated its statewide nominees by convention instead of by primary.
The Black Star News, a weekly newspaper in New York city in existence since 1997, has this op-ed by Lenora Fulani, advocating a vote for Adolfo Carrion for Mayor on November 5. Carrion is the nominee of the Independence Party.
The New York Times of September 23 has an editorial about the Mayoral race. The editorial only mentions three candidates, including Carrion, even though there are approximately ten candidates on the November ballot.
The Independence Party has existed in New York since 1994 and this year is the first time it has run its own nominee for Mayor of New York city. In 1997, the Independence Party didn’t run anyone for Mayor. In 2001, 2005, and 2009, it nominated Michael Bloomberg, who was also the Republican Party nominee those years. Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the link to the Black Star News.
According to this article in the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State Senator Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) wants his ballot access restrictions to pass before the end of 2013, because he wants them in place for the 2014 election. His bill, SB 193, would require 55,809 valid signatures by the end of June 2014, for any party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties to be on the 2014 ballot. His bill then also requires separate petitions for each of that party’s nominees.
Seitz is also the author of the bill that already passed earlier this year, which would make it illegal for such parties to use out-of-state circulators. A lawsuit against that law is pending in U.S. District Court.
The Columbus Dispatch does not mention that courts have sometimes ruled that it violates due process for a state to increase the number of signatures in the middle of the petitioning period. For example, in 1999, West Virginia doubled the petition requirement from 1% to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, but a U.S. District Court in 2000 ruled that the new increase could not be implemented for the 2000 election. That case was Nader 2000 Primary Committee v Hechler, 112 F.Supp.2d 575.
