On August 25, Public Policy Polling released this interesting poll that measures the November 2012 election if various well-known political figures ran outside the two major parties.
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Anthony Prowell is a Tucson, Arizona Democrat who wishes to run for Congress in the 8th district in 2012. However, that seat is now held by Gabrielle Giffords, who says she is at least eight months away from deciding whether she will run for re-election. See this story, which explains that Democratic Party officials are so angry with Prowell for even suggesting that someone else should run for the Democratic nomination, that Prowell is now considering switching to the Green Party. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
On October 18, Massachusetts is holding a special election to fill the vacant State House seat in the Berkshire County 3rd district, around Pittsfield. The race will be between Green Party nominee Mark C. Miller, and a Democrat who will be chosen in a special primary on September 20. On August 24, the Miller campaign announced that the Massachusetts United Auto Workers has already endorsed Miller, even though no one yet knows which of three Democrats will be the Democratic nominee. See this story. Thanks to Green Party Watch for this news.
Mark Miller ran for this same seat in November 2010, and in a two-person race against a Democrat, polled 45.02%.
Nationally-organized minor parties, which are traditionally under-funded, nevertheless sometimes have enough funding to provide a significant boost to a single nominee, or a handful of nominees, for important office. But such parties then have a problem deciding in an objective manner which of their many nominees to support.
Alex Snitker has written this proposal for his party, the Libertarian Party. It involves an internal national party vote, by rank-and-file members, to decide which three Libertarian U.S. House nominees should get the party’s full financial help. All voters would qualify by donating $25 to the fund that would ultimately go to the chosen nominees. Alex Snitker was the Libertarian Party’s U.S. Senate nominee in Florida in 2010. He now acknowledges that U.S. Senate campaigns are too expensive, and he limits his proposal to U.S. House races.
The idea might face an obstacle from the part of the McCain-Feingold law that limits how much money national political parties can donate to their own nominees, although these limits do not apply if the spending is not coordinated with the nominees.
On August 18, a U.S. District Court in Illinois issued a five-page opinion in Whitney v Window to the World Communcations, Inc., n.d., 10C-7003. The case was filed by the Green Party in 2010, after WTTW-11 sponsored a gubernatorial debate and invited only the Democratic and Republican nominees. The decision dismisses the case on the grounds that the defendant, a public broadcasting station, is neither owned by the government, nor was it acting as an arm of the government. The defendant is a non-profit corporation.
Footnote two of the decision says that the Court would be disinclined to force Richard Whitney or the Green Party to pay attorneys’ fees to the defendants. During the litigation, the station had threatened to seek attorneys fees if the case were not dismissed. Thanks to Phil Huckelberry for this news.