On May 3, Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein co-signed a letter to President Obama, pointing out that no U.S. law prohibits Obama from releasing those Guantanamo prisoners who are legally innocent. The letter says that 86 of the 166 prisoners fit this description. Here is the letter.
Bruce Fein is a former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link.
Texas SB 817 passed the Senate unanimously on April 17. It has a hearing in the House Elections Committee on May 6. It is sponsored by Senator Glenn Hegar (R-Katy). It says that parties that nominate by convention would have their state nominating convention in April instead of June. It has no effect on the petitioning process itself or the petition deadline. The party desires this change because party nominees would have an easier time campaigning for the general election if they were “officially” nominees earlier in the year.
The bill also permits a party that nominates by convention to allow its nominees to hold the office of chair of the county party. Current law forbids individuals from simultaneously being candidates and party county chairmen, but the bill relaxes that, for parties that nominate by convention. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
The Militant, weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, has this front-page story in its May 13 issue, explaining and celebrating the recent decision of the Federal Elections Commission to continue the party’s exemption from reporting its campaign contributors and how it spends its money.
On May 1, George McDonald, a Republican candidate for Mayor of New York city, lost his lawsuit over whether the amount of money an individual may contribute to a Mayoral candidate is $41,000 or $4,950. McDonald v New York City Campaign Finance Board, 100038/2013, New York County.
New York state law sets the donation limit at $41,000, but the city’s own campaign finance law sets it at $4,950. McDonald argued that it is legitimate for the city to impose the lower limit on candidates who qualify for public funding (a city program), but the lower amount cannot be imposed on candidates not participating in public funding. The city has used public funding for city office since 1988. The city amended its public financing law in 2004 to impose the lower limits on all candidates, not just participating candidates. Here is a more detailed story about the decision, which includes a link to the decision.
On May 3, the Florida legislature passed HB 7013. Here is a copy of the bill. Go to the end of the document to see a summary of all the changes.
The bill moves the presidential primary from January to March. It moves the non-presidential primary from early August to late August. It does not include the provision that would have relaxed the duration of membership requirement for candidates to run in a party primary. Because section 99.021 was not amended in HB 7013, the restriction passed in 2011, saying candidates cannot run in a party primary if they have been members of another party during the preceding year, remains in place.
If any qualified political party passes a bylaw contradicting the state law, and saying candidates can run in that party’s primary even if they were members of another party in the past, the party would probably win the lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that states cannot tell parties that may not nominate a non-member. Duration of party membership laws have been struck down in Colorado and New Mexico.
