This New York Times story explores the means by which China prevents candidates for local office from running, or at least from winning, unless they are the nominees of the Communist Party.
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On December 3, Newt Gingrich spoke to a town hall meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn in Staten Island, New York city. He took questions from the audience. Frank Morano asked him if he would consider a general election presidential debate that included all the candidates on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the election. Gingrich replied that he would not do that, and that all minor party activity in 2012 would be helping Obama to win.
Rachel Maddow’s TV show on MSNBC recently ran a segment about Americans Elect, and then a segment about Rocky Anderson’s Justice Party. It includes a five-minute interview with Anderson, in which Maddow simply let Anderson speak about why he is forming the party. Here is the link.
On December 1, a New York Supreme Court in Albany upheld New York state’s new law, that says for redistricting purposes, prisoners should be counted at the address they lived before they were imprisoned, instead of at the prison. Little v New York State Task Force on Demographic Research & Reapportionment, 2310-2011. Here is the eleven-page opinion. The lawsuit had been filed by ten State Senators, most of whom represent areas that have prisons. Assuming the decision is not reversed, this means that rural upstate counties with many prisons will lose representation relative to urban areas where most prisoners lived before they were imprisoned.
According to this story, on December 2, Republicans in Wisconsin withdrew a pending lawsuit in the State Supreme Court over whether old legislative district boundaries, or new legislative district boundaries, should be used if there are any more legislative recall petitions filed in the next few weeks. Therefore, the old boundaries will be used. However, there is a second Republican Party lawsuit on this issue pending in a lower state court which hasn’t been withdrawn yet.