Five parties with “Socialist” or “Socialism” in their names ran their own presidential candidates in 2012. Generally these parties ignore the existence of the other socialist parties, in their campaign literature, and their periodicals. But the Freedom Socialist Party’s most recent newspaper, the February/March 2013 issue of “Freedom Socialist”, breaks with that tradition, and explains the political differences with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. See this article by Megan Cornish.

Within the Liberal Party of Canada (one of Canada’s two largest parties) there are activists who want their party to officially endorse proportional representation. They have organized to persuade their party to endorse it. See here for their webpage. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On January 31, Tennessee State Senator Jim Kyle (D-Memphis), the leader of the Democrats in the State Senate, introduced SB 1091. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote to exactly 1,000 signatures. Thanks to Daniel Lewis for this news.