The lawsuit against the Washington state top-two system is now docketed in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Democratic Party’s appeal is 11-1263 and the Libertarian Party’s appeal is 11-1266. The state’s response, should it choose to submit one, is due May 21. The Court could possibly decide in June whether to hear this case, or it might put off that decision until October.
On April 23, the Pima County Board of Supervisors chose Nicholas Fontana to fill a vacant seat in the Arizona State House of Representatives. When legislative vacancies occur in Arizona, there is no special election. Instead, the county government chooses a replacement. The county must select from a list submitted to the county. When the legislator being replaced is a Democrat, the Democratic Party submits the list of possible replacements, and of course when the legislator being replaced is a Republican, the Republican Party has the same ability.
In this case, the legislator who resigned had switched his registration to “independent” before he resigned, so the county improvised by appointing a committee to submit a list of independents. Fontana is an attorney who has been registered as an independent for a lengthy period of time.
On April 23, the Minnesota Senate rejected the bill to move the primary (for office other than President) from August to June. See this story.
An earlier blog post about the Minnesota bill said that if the bill passed, the effect would be to automatically move the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, from August to June. That was incorrect. Minnesota decoupled the presidential independent deadline from the primary date several years ago.
This Atlanta Journal-Constitution story says Cynthia McKinney will run for U.S. House this year in the 4th district (her old district) as a Green Party nominee. However, the story does not actually say that McKinney has said this publicly.
The story says the petition deadline is August 6, but actually the deadline is July 10.
On April 23, MSNBC aired an interview with David Walker, who recently has been mentioned as someone whom Americans Elect might conceivably nominate. The interviewer is Chuck Todd, host of the Daily Rundown.
Walker says he does not want to run for President, but his demeanor seems to suggest that he doesn’t mind at all that there is a draft committee, which will be working to qualify him for the Americans Elect primary. The draft effort must persuade 10,000 Americans Elect participants to “click” for him, by May 15. Then, if that happens, Walker (and any other person for which a draft committee has obtained enough clicks) has two weeks to decide whether to accept the draft. Currently, Ron Paul’s draft committee has over 8,000 clicks but no one else is close to qualifying.
In the interview, Walker mentions Gary Johnson as the likely nominee of the Libertarian Party, but then he says that the Libertarian Party is on the ballot in 27 states, and the implication is that that number won’t increase. But actually, the Libertarian Party is now on the ballot in 31 states, and that number is expected to increase to 49 or 50 by the end of the petitioning periods. Some of the petitions aren’t due until September. Walker also mentions Buddy Roemer, but Walker then describes Roemer as someone who is seeking the Reform Party nomination. Walker doesn’t mention that Roemer is also seeking the Americans Elect nomination. Walker then praises Americans Elect and says it will be on the ballot in all 50 states, without mentioning that currently, Americans Elect is only on in 26 states.
