On June 20, Mike Feinstein announced that he will run for the Santa Monica city council this November. He has been a state and national leader of the Green Party, and had served on the same City Council ten years ago. See this story.
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According to this story, one of the Oregon initiatives for a top-two system has collected 145,000 signatures, so it is very likely to qualify. It needs 87,213 valid signatures by July 3.
The initiative that is qualifying is the same form of top-two that is used in Washington and California. Its backers have raised $413,000. The initiative that is likely to qualify is not the alternate initiative that uses approval voting in the primary. Thanks to several readers for the link.
Edward Forchion, an independent candidate for U.S. House in New Jersey, has been removed from the ballot, partly because he is registered to vote in California. See this story, which says he has filed a lawsuit to regain a spot on the ballot. The Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits have ruled that states cannot keep congressional candidates off the ballot just because they aren’t registered to vote in the state in which they are running. It is not known if Forchion’s attorney is aware of these precedents; attempts to reach him have not been successful.
Forchion is also known as N J Weedman, and his ballot label, if he gets on the ballot, is “Legalize Marijuana.” The lawsuit is Forchion v Guadagno, Superior Court, MER-L-1342-14. This article on the web page of the Democratic-Republican Party has a link to the latest brief in the case, the reply brief filed by Forchion on June 18, 2014.
Florida filing for state office closed on June 20. In the 13th State House district, only one candidate, the incumbent, Reggie Fullwood, attempted to file. Because his Financial Disclosure statement is not properly notarized, the filing is defective. See this story.
Florida requires declared write-in candidates to file on the same day that candidates qualify for the primary and general election ballot, so it is too late for anyone to file as a write-in. Therefore, Florida will be required to hold a special election to fill the seat for the 2015-2016 legislative session. The district is in Jacksonville. Fullwood is a Democrat. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for the link.
On June 18, the California government filed its brief in the State Court of Appeals in Rubin v Bowen, the minor party case against the top-two system. The government brief has some of the same deficiencies of the brief filed by top-two supporters. On page one it refers to California’s elections for Congress, state legislature, and state executive office as “nonpartisan.” And page sixteen says the November election is a “runoff.”
Page twenty-two implies that, before California put the top-two system in place, independent voters could not vote in partisan primaries. The truth is that between 2001 and 2010, independent voters were asked at the polling place if they wished to vote on a Democratic or Republican primary ballot, for all congressional and state office elections.