On November 6, 2012, Libertarian Party member John Inks was re-elected to the Mountain View, California, city council. And on the evening of January 8, the city council chose him as Mayor. See this story, which explains the traditional method by which Mountain View city councilmembers choose one of their own to be Mayor.

Mountain View has a population of 74,066, and is the headquarters city for Google, Intuit, Mozilla Foundation, and Symantec. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the news.

What will probably be the final lawsuit on whether President Obama meets the Constitutional Qualifications to be President has a conference date in the U.S. Supreme Court. The lead plaintiff is Ed Noonan, who won the American Independent Party non-binding presidential primary in California last year. Two other plaintiffs are individuals who ran in major party presidential primaries last year. The case is Noonan v Bowen, 12A606.

This case was filed in the California Supreme Court on December 4, and on December 6 that Court refused to hear it. In the California Supreme Court it was case S207078. The attorney who filed the case, Orly Taitz, then asked the U.S. Supreme Court for injunctive relief. She did that on December 11, and on December 13 Justice Anthony Kennedy denied it. Then, the case was refiled in front of Chief Justice John Roberts on December 26, and he has put it on the Court’s conference of February 15. Of course, that is almost a month after Inauguration Day.

Activists in Alabama, and in Tennessee, are each working for fairer ballot access by lobbying the state legislature. Here is the Tennessee group’s facebook page, and here is the Alabama group’s page. The Alabama lobbying is further along and probably a bill will be introduced in the next five days. The Tennessee group is starting to look for sponsors.