The March 29 (Sunday) New York Times has this review of Martin Duberman’s “A saving remnant: the Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds”. David McReynolds was the Socialist Party’s presidential nominee in 1980 as well as in 2000.
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On March 23, the Maine Joint Standing Committee on State and Local Government held a hearing on LD 545. This is the bill to ease the number of signatures for a member of a small qualified party to get on that party’s primary ballot. Current Maine law requires 2,000 signatures of party members, for a statewide candidate, regardless of how many registered voters that party has. The bill would amend the law to require the smaller of 2,000 signatures, or 2% of the number of people registered in that party.
The Green Party presented several witnesses who described the extreme difficulty of getting the signatures of 2,000 party members, in a limited time, for a party that has 37,000 registered voters. The committee seemed receptive to the bill and will soon hold a work session to finalize the bill.
Lyle Denniston of Scotusblog has this clear, impartial, and lengthy analysis of the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in the Arizona public funding case, which is actually two cases, McComish v Brewer, and Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s PAC v Bennett. The oral argument is Monday, March 28. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Canada will almost certainly hold a national parliamentary election on May 2. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The Boston Herald has this editorial, criticizing bills in the Massachusetts legislature to increase the number of signatures needed to put a statewide initiative on the ballot. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.