On June 21, National Public Radio aired a twelve-minute interview with Gary Johnson. Read the transcript at this link.
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The Idaho Republican Party state convention is meeting June 21-23. This article says that Idaho county election officials have requested the Republican Party to abandon a closed primary for itself. One of the county elections officials also advocated that county office be made non-partisan.
The story does not mention that this year, there was no presidential primary in Idaho for any party. Caucuses were used instead. 2012 is the first year since 1972 in which Idaho didn’t hold presidential primaries.
The New York legislature adjourned for the year on June 21. It did not pass the National Popular Vote Plan bill. Oddly enough, the bill did pass the Senate, which has a Republican majority. But the bill did not pass the Assembly, which has a strong Democratic majority. Generally, in other states, it is Democratic chambers that are likely to pass the idea, and Republican-majority chambers tend not to pass the idea.
On June 21, the Alabama Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties filed their reply brief in Stein v Chapman, which challenges Alabama ballot access procedures for putting the presidential nominee of an unqualified party on the November ballot. The case is Stein v Chapman, 2:12-cv-42.
Bruce McPherson, a former Republican Secretary of State of California, recently changed his registration from “Republican” to “independent.” See this story. He is running this year for Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, a non-partisan post. He will be in a run-off in November against a registered Democrat, but party registration has no official bearing in California elections for county and city office, and no party labels appear on the ballot.
McPherson was appointed Secretary of State by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In January 2006, while he was Secretary of State, he ruled that the Peace & Freedom Party was not entitled to be on the ballot in 2006. However, after he learned that his opinion violated precedent, he was good enough to acknowledge that he had made a mistake, and he then ruled that the Peace & Freedom Party did belong on the ballot.
The Santa Cruz News Sentinel suggests that McPherson is the highest ranking ex-state officer ever to be a registered independent, but that part of the story is incorrect. Jerry Brown was a registered independent at one point, after he had served as Governor during the period 1974-1982. After a few years, Brown returned to being a registered Democrat, and of course is again Governor of California.