According to this story, an independent member of the Canadian Parliament, Bruce Hyer, says he has decided to cease being an independent, and will join a party. He was previously a member of the New Democratic Party. Sources believe he will join the Green Party, but Hyer says he won’t make a formal announcement until December 13. The Green Party currently only has one member, Elizabeth May, who was elected from British Columbia in the last national election.
Recently, two polls were released for the California June 2014 gubernatorial primary. The PPIC poll shows: Democrat Jerry Brown 47%, Republican Tim Donnelly 16%, Republican Abel Maldonado 7%, someone else (volunteered) 1%, undecided 29%. Scroll down to page 12 for these results.
However, a Field poll shows: Democrat Jerry Brown 58%, Republican Abel Maldonado 11%, Republican Tim Donnelly 9%, Republican Neel Kashkari 3%, undecided 25%.
Cindy Sheehan and Luis Rodriguez are also running for California Governor, but the pollsters did not include them. Sheehan will have the “Peace & Freedom” label, and Rodriguez the “Green” label. As most readers know, California has the top-two system, and only the two candidates who place first and second can run in the election itself.
The lawsuit Stein v Chapman has been appealed to the Eleventh Circuit. This is the case in which the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties have challenged the March petition deadline (which only exists in presidential election years) for the petition to place newly-qualifying parties on the ballot.
A U.S. District Court in Ohio has expedited the lawsuit over whether the new ballot access restrictions can be imposed for the 2014 election. All briefs must be submitted by December 18, and the hearing might be held that same day. The judge says he will decide the case no later than January 8, 2014. The legislature last month passed SB 193, which removes the four minor parties from the 2014 ballot and says they must submit approximately 28,000 valid signatures for the party, and then separate candidate petitions, if the parties want to be on the 2014 general election ballot.
The Third Circuit will hold an oral argument in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele sometime in February 2014. This is the lawsuit in which the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties are challenging the unique system that puts petitioning groups at risk of court costs of as much as $110,000 if they submit a statewide petition that is found to lack enough valid signatures.
The U.S. District Court in this case had found that none of the three parties have standing, even though the case was filed in 2012, the year in which both the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party were challenged. The Libertarian Party took a chance and went through the court petition-checking litigation, whereas the Constitution Party withdrew its statewide petition, even though there is some reason to believe it had enough valid signatures in 2012.
During the course of the Libertarian 2012 petition-checking litigation, the state courts issued some good precedents. Specifically, signatures are not invalid just because the signer only wrote down the month and day, but not the year, in the “date” column; and signatures are not invalid if the signer moved within the same county and hadn’t yet re-registered. If those rules had been already established, the Constitution Party might have also taken the risk of having its petition validity determined by the state courts.
The three parties had filed a somewhat similar lawsuit a few years ago, but that was during an odd year when none of them had actually petitioned for that year’s election. That case was also dismissed on standing, and in that case, the Third Circuit didn’t even ask for oral arguments, but in the current case, the Third Circuit will hold oral arguments.
