Ever since 1979, the Lyndon LaRouche organization has been running candidates in Democratic primaries. One of its most successful candidates in recent years has been Kesha Rogers, who won the Democratic U.S. House nomination in the Texas 22nd district in both 2010 and 2012. She has filed to run in the Texas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 2014. See this Dallas News story. Thanks to Larry Ferenz for the link.
According to this story, Rob Sarvis, the Libertarian nominee for Governor of Virginia last month, says he may run as a Libertarian for U.S. Senate in 2014. The story also mentions the interesting detail that, after the election, Sarvis phoned Terry McAuliffe to congratulate McAuliffe on his victory, yet Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican nominee, never made such a phone call to McAuliffe.
Alaska Division of Elections releases a voter registration tally once a month. The December 3, 2013 tally shows: Republican 27.18%, Democratic 14.26%, independent 53.22%, Alaskan Independence 3.19%, Libertarian 1.52%, Green .37%, Veterans .23%, Constitution .03%.
The November 3, 2012 tally showed: Republican 27.17%, Democratic 14.50%, independent 53.05%, Alaskan Independence 3.10%, Libertarian 1.52%, Green .40%, Veterans .25%, Constitution .02%.
The Green, Veterans, and Constitution Parties aren’t ballot-qualified, but Alaska lists them as choices on voter registration forms, because they have requested to be listed. It is interesting that the Alaskan Independence Party registration has increased during 2013, even though the party appears completely defunct and had no nominees whatsoever in 2012.
This article describes the effort by two Pennsylvania legislators to win support for their bill to abolish popular elections for state judges. Thanks to How Appealing for the link.
On December 6, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance issued an advisory opinion, saying that for campaign finance purposes, all political parties should be treated alike, whether they are ballot-qualified or not. The opinion had been requested last month by the Libertarian Party.
The Kentucky law on how parties gain qualified status is more severe than it sounds. Kentucky requires a 2% vote for President to be a qualified minor party, and a 20% vote for President to be a major party. The only parties that have enjoyed qualified status in Kentucky since World War II are the American Party 1968-1972, the Anderson Coalition Party 1980-1984, and the Reform Party 1996-2000. Obviously, many other minor parties have placed nominees on the ballot in the last 70 years, including the Libertarian Party, but they haven’t had qualified party status.
Under the ruling, qualified party status is immaterial to campaign finance. In 2011, the Libertarian Party put a nominee for State Treasurer on the ballot, and was warned that the party could not give more than $1,000 to its nominee because it wasn’t a qualified party, but in the future, unqualified parties will be permitted to give as much as the qualified parties. Thanks to Ken Moellman for this news.
