The Green Party presidential candidates will debate each other in San Francisco on Saturday, May 12. The debate will include Roseanne Barr, Kent Mesplay, and Jill Stein. The location is the Victoria Theater at 2961 16th Street, at the corner of Mission. The event runs from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The cost is between $10 and $20 on a sliding scale. The debate host will be Rose Aguilar, host of “Your Call” on KALW-FM and author of “Red Highways, a Liberal’s journey Through the Heartland.”
The New York Times has this story about the U.S. Senate race in Maine, a race in which independent Angus King is expected to win. No independent or minor party nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine has ever before polled even as much as 10% of the vote, all the way back to the beginning of direct elections for U.S. Senate. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On May 4, a lower state court in Colorado ruled that El Paso County election officials must print primary ballots for the Democratic Party, and the American Constitution Party, even though there are no contested primaries for those two parties. The primary is June 26. The county said it could have saved $68,000 if it had been allowed to avoid holding primaries for those parties.
On May 6, the Green Party of Arkansas held its nominating convention. It nominated candidates for all four U.S. House districts, 2 state legislative districts, and 8 local partisan offices. Also the convention chose a slate of delegates to the national Green Party convention that are all pledged to Jill Stein for President.
One of the party’s legislative nominees is a former basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters. See this story.
The Libertarian Party national convention smoothly nominated candidates for President and Vice-President on Saturday, May 5. There were no problems with parliamentary procedure or with the voting process, during the voting for President and Vice-President. However, the voting process for national party officers was very different, and involved the first instance (as far as is known) in which “NOTA” (none of the above) was victorious in national convention voting. The NOTA victory came in the contest for national chair, in one particular vote on Saturday.
Geoff Neale is the new national chair (even though he was not even running as of Saturday); vice-chair is Lee Wrights; Secretary is Ruth Bennett; Treasurer is Tim Hagan. Wrights had sought the party’s presidential nomination and had placed second to Gary Johnson. National committee members-at-large are Bill Redpath of Virginia, Michael Cloud of Arizona, Starchild of California, Arvin Vohra of Maryland, and Wayne Root of Nevada.
