U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson has scheduled a trial for October 16, at 9 a.m., in California Justice Committee v Bowen, central district, 2:12cv3956. This is the case over the constitutionality of California’s January petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. The judge had already enjoined this deadline, in May 2012, on the basis that the deadline is probably unconstitutional. The case had been filed in May by the Justice Party and the Constitution Party.
Ballotpedia has analyzed the primary election returns from August 7. See here. In Kansas, 34% of all incumbent legislators running for re-election who had primary opponents were defeated. Kansas has closed primaries.
In Michigan, which has an open primary, 14% of all legislative incumbents running for re-election who had opponents were defeated. In Missouri, which also has an open primary, 23% of the legislative incumbents running for re-election who had opponents were defeated.
But in Washington state, which has a top-two primary, not a single legislative incumbent was defeated for re-election. These results confirm earlier research that no system is kinder to incumbents running for re-election than top-two systems. In California’s top-two primary in June this year, no incumbents were defeated. Thanks to Eric O’Keefe for the link.
On August 8, the Green Party of Alaska is submitting approximately 4,500 signatures, to obtain “Limited Political Party” status in Alaska. The requirement is 3,273 valid signatures. “Limited political status” means a party is qualified only for the limited purpose of placing its presidential and vice-presidential nominees on the ballot.
Assuming the petition is valid, this will be the first time since 2006 that the Green Party has had any nominees on the ballot in Alaska. The party was ballot-qualified for all office in the past, but didn’t poll enough votes to remain on the ballot in 2006, and did not appear on the ballot for president in 2008.
Both the Republican and the Democratic primaries for Michigan’s U.S. House race in the eleventh district were interesting this year. The primary was August 7. Here is an article about the results.
The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper, has this story about the refusal of the Tennessee Secretary of State to list the Green Party and Constitution Party nominees for public office on the state’s web page, until August 30. Obviously the Secretary of State is hoping that the Sixth Circuit will remove those candidates from the ballot.
