The American Independent Party of California will hold its state convention on June 8-10, either in Sacramento or West Sacramento. On June 9 the party will choose its presidential nominee. In 2008 the party chose Alan Keyes for President.
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The Oklahoma ballot access case, Libertarian Party of Oklahoma et al v Ziriax, will probably have an oral argument during the first week in March. The plaintiffs, who include the Green Party, are seeking injunctive relief against the March 1 petition deadline for new parties. Here is the brief of the plaintiffs, in support of the motion for an injunction.
This lengthy newspaper story says that the Maine legislature is moving slowly to fix the state’s public funding program. The law must be amended, to take into account the U.S. Supreme Court decision Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v Bennett, which said that it is unconstitutional to give extra public funding to publicly-funded candidates who have well-funded privately-funded opponents.
On February 23, the Missouri House Rules Committee passed HB 1236. This is the bill that fixes a typographical error in the law. The error says that even though the petition to qualify a new party doesn’t need to list any candidates in general, it must list candidates for presidential elector (if that party intends to run a presidential nominee). The Rules Committee passed the bill unanimously so it is likely to pass the House on the consent calender soon.
There have been bills to fix this problem in the past, but in the past, these bills were merged in with other election law bills, and those other bills sometimes had unrelated controversial provisions, which caused them to either fail to get through the entire legislative process, or which caused a gubernatorial veto. So far, this year, the bill to fix the typographical error is being kept as a separate bill, which helps.
A California Superior Court in Alameda County will hear arguments in Rubin v Bowen on March 6, Tuesday, at 9 a.m. This is the case filed by the Peace & Freedom Party, Libertarian Party of California, and the Alameda County Green Party, against California’s “top-two” system. It concerns the essential characteristic of all top-two systems, that the system inevitably excludes all parties from the general election season and the general election ballot except for the Democratic and Republican Parties. The hearing is at the Alameda County Courthouse, 1221 Oak Street, department 16.
This case should not be confused with the older California lawsuits Field v Bowen, and Chamness v Bowen, which only attacked two particular aspects of California’s top-two system (the ban on counting write-ins, and the discriminatory policy on ballot labels).