On April 8, the Louisiana House passed HB 193 by a vote of 84-5, after utterly revising it. The original bill said that independent candidates could have the ballot label “independent” instead of “no party.” But as amended, the bill does nothing to help independent candidates. Instead, now the bill repeals the law that says no party can be called the “Independent Party” and no party can have “Independent” as one of the words in its name. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
The Sixth Circuit had decided to hold oral argument in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 14-3230. This is the case over whether the Libertarian candidates for Governor-Lieutenant Governor should be on the party’s May 6 primary ballot. The argument will be sometime during the week of April 21-25.
Neither side had asked for oral argument. This development shows that the Sixth Circuit is taking the case very seriously. The exact date hasn’t been set yet.
As already noted, on March 31, a New Jersey Superior Court Judge struck down New Jersey’s law that won’t let petitioners work outside their own district. On April 8, Democratic congressional candidate Janice Kovach benefited from that decision, when an Administrative Law Judge restored her to the June 3 ballot. Kovach, the only Democrat running in the Seventh District, had initially been rejected because she was told she didn’t have at least 200 valid signatures of registered Democrats. She did have enough valid signatures, but some of them had been rejected because one of her circulators doesn’t live in the district.
The Administrative Law Judge who put Kovach back on the ballot seems to have based the decision on Kovach’s argument that Kovach herself, not the out-of-district circulator, co-circulated the petition. See this story. Thanks to William Fenwick for this news.
On April 8, Arlington County, Virginia, held a special election to fill a vacant seat on the County Board. Independent candidate John Vihstadt won with an absolute majority, even though there were four candidates on the ballot. This is the first time since 1999 that any Democratic nominee ran and failed to win election to this office. Arlington County has a population of 207,627 and is directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
The county has five board members. All seats are elected at-large. Although this is a partisan office, Virginia does not print party labels on general election ballots for county partisan office. Here is a link to the unofficial election returns. Here is a story about the outcome. Although the story says Vihstadt is a Republican, Virginia does not have registration by party. Because Vihstadt qualified for the ballot under the independent candidate procedures, and was not nominated by the Republican Party, that statement in the story is somewhat misleading. Thanks to Brandon Payne for the link.
In this letter, Maria Pereira, who was elected to the Bridgeport, Connecticut School Board as a Working Families Party nominee in 2009, resigns her office within the Working Families Party. She objects to the party’s cross-endorsement of Democratic Governor Dan Malloy, who is running for re-election this year.
