Jim Jenkins, a prominent Nebraska rancher and a former Democrat, has been mulling over running for U.S. Senate this year as an independent candidate. However, in 2011 the Nebraska legislature passed a law, saying no one may be an independent candidate (except for President) if the person was a registered member of a qualified political party at any time during the election year. Jenkins didn’t switch his registration from “Democrat” to “independent” until January, so the new law won’t permit him to be an independent candidate.

He still has two options: (1) he is free to switch back to the Democratic Party and run in the Democratic primary; (2) he is free to start a new political party and be that party’s nominee for U.S. Senate. See this article about him. The deadline for a new political party petition is August 1, and that petition needs 4,880 signatures.

A bill is pending in the legislature to repeal the prior disaffiliation law for independent candidates. It is LB 1070, but it is unlikely to pass in time to help Jenkins.

The Tennesseean, Nashville’s daily newspaper, has this story in its February 7 issue, telling readers that on Friday, February 3, a U.S. District Court Judge struck down the law on how new and minor parties get on the ballot. The story is accurate, but incomplete, because it fails to say that the judge put the two plaintiff political parties, the Green Party and the Constitution Party, on the 2012 ballot.

Here is the final brief in the Massachusetts Supreme Court, in the Libertarian case over whether Massachusetts law authorizes an unqualified party to use a stand-in presidential candidate on its ballot access petition. The hearing is February 9.