U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg died on June 3. Because New Jersey was holding a gubernatorial election anyway on November 4, 2013, a date that is more than 70 days in the future, there will probably be a special U.S. Senate election to fill the vacant seat on that day. The normal petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, this year for state office, is June 4, 2013. Obviously the special U.S. Senate election will have a different deadline, one that is closer to the general election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the special election. See this story.

Ian Milhiser, a Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress, has noticed that New Jersey election law appears to contradict itself on the date of the special election. 19:3-26 says because the seat became vacant more than 70 days before the November 4, 2013 regularly-scheduled state election, the U.S. Senate election must be that day also. But 19:27-6 says that special U.S. Senate elections will only be held if the vacancy was created more than 70 days before the primary, which this year is June 4, 2013.

The June 2 Richmond Times-Dispatch has this editorial, praising last week’s decision that eliminated Virginia’s ban on out-of-state petition circulators.

According to this story, a draft of a Connecticut omnibus election law bill would not only make it illegal for a party to use the word “Independent” in its name; it would also ban these words from being part of a political party’s name: “United States”; “America”; “Connecticut”; the name of any city or town; or any words relating to a symbol for the government or a deity or religion. Scroll down to the last portion of the article.

In 1990, former U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker formed “A Connecticut Party” and was elected Governor under that party name. Since then, the Connecticut legislature has passed discriminatory public funding for state office that, if it had existed in 1990, would have made it impossible for Weicker to have won the 1990 election (according to Weicker himself, in his sworn testimony in a lawsuit over that law). On top of that, some legislators seem to want to retroactively fight what happened in 1990 by also depriving Weicker of his chosen party label.