See this story, which says that recently, Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler tweeted that he doesn’t have authority to determine if presidential candidates meet the constitutional qualifications, and to remove them from the November ballot if they don’t meet the constitutional qualifications. Scroll down to the paragraph headed, “Couillon.”

It is true that in 1972, Louisiana printed the name of Linda Jenness on the November ballot as the Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate. She was age 33 at the time, and the Socialist Workers Party made no secret of that. The SWP in 1972 tried vigorously to defend the policy of letting it run an under-age presidential candidate. The party argued that the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for instances at which the voters elect someone who doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

On March 28, the news broke that California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher is changing his registration from “Republican” to “independent”. He is not running for re-election. Instead, he is running for the non-partisan post of Mayor of San Diego. He has been one of the four whips of the California Republican Assembly caucus.

Recently the San Diego Republican Party endorsed someone else for Mayor of San Diego. The election for Mayor is June 5, 2012, and if no one gets at least 50%, a run-off will be held in November. The Mayoral race has four candidates. Besides Fletcher, one is a Democrat and two are Republicans.

The last California independent legislator was Assemblyman Juan Arambula, of Fresno, who switched from the Democratic Party to independent status in June 2009. He did not run for re-election in 2010 because he was term-limited. Before that, the last independent in the California legislature was Audie Bock, who switched from being a Green, to being an independent, in late 1999. The last person actually elected as an independent to the California legislature was Quentin Kopp, re-elected as an independent in 1990 and 1994.

The Constitution Party has qualified for the ballot in Wyoming, for the first time in its history. The Secretary of State has determined that its petition has enough valid signatures. Wyoming now has five ballot-qualified parties. The others are Democratic, Republican, Americans Elect, and Libertarian.