On February 6, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania jury convicted State Representative H. William DeWeese of using state resources to work on partisan political activity during the period 2000-2006. DeWeese was in the Democratic leadership in the House during those years. He directed staff to use government employees and government computers to help challenge the 2004 petition of Ralph Nader, and the 2006 statewide Green Party petition. See this story. DeWeese is currently in the legislature, and has been a state legislator since he was elected in a special election in May, 1976.

It is possible this conviction will have some relevance to Ralph Nader’s pending lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and its allies, over what was done by Democrats to Nader ballot access efforts in 2004. The Maine Supreme Court is still considering Nader’s lawsuit. Also a District of Columbia appeals court is still considering whether to force a Washington, D.C. bank to turn over Nader’s funds to his Democratic 2004 challengers.

Over the weekend, the Oregon Republican Party decided to let independent voters vote in its 2012 primary, but only for the three statewide state offices. Oregon has no U.S. Senate race up in 2012, but it has these statewide offices: Attorney General, Treasurer, and Secretary of State. See this story. The party says it is an experiment and it will see how it works before possibly opening up its primary later for district and county partisan offices.

The party says the presidential primary will not be open to independent voters in 2012. Although the story seems to say that the Republican National Committee won’t allow the state party to do that, it seems more likely that the Republican National Committee only has a rule that says it is too late to change the rules for presidential primaries in 2012, not that the national Republican Party has a rule in general against open presidential primaries. There are many Republican presidential primaries open to independent voters, all across the nation.