On January 22, the American Independent Party of California held a meeting of party officers, and voted to tell the California Secretary of State that it will permit independents to vote in its 2012 primary. Of course, because of Proposition 14, the only partisan primaries will be for President.
The American Independent Party allowed independents to vote in its primaries in 2008 and earlier years, but in 2010 it changed its rules and didn’t allow independents to vote in its primary.
See this blog post from Texas Redistricting, which says that the 3-judge panel in San Antonio has moved the status conference in the redistricting case from February to January 27 at 1 p.m.
According to this story, the various challenges to Republican presidential primary candidates in Illinois are all being dropped. The various Republican presidential candidates concluded a “truce.”
Rhode Island requires 1,000 signatures for a presidential candidate to get on a presidential primary ballot. No one can circulate who didn’t file a declaration of candidacy by Saturday, January 21. The only Democrat who filed is President Obama. Seven Republicans filed the declaration of candidacy: Mark Callahan, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.
Presumably, most, but not all, of those Republicans are now circulating the petition, which is due February 2. Of course it is virtually certain that Rick Perry is not circulating a petition. The Rhode Island Republican Party is helping circulate petitions for the candidates it recognizes. Any registered voter may sign, even though Rhode Island has registration by party. The primary is April 24.
On January 23, Fox & Hounds, a prominent California political blog, ran this commentary, criticizing the California legislature for moving to eliminate write-in space on general election ballots. The commentary is by Michael Feinstein. The bill to abolish write-in space on November ballots for Congress and partisan state office, AB 1413, has already passed the State Senate and will probably have a hearing in the Assembly Elections Committee on Thursday, January 26.
