According to this story, on December 2, Republicans in Wisconsin withdrew a pending lawsuit in the State Supreme Court over whether old legislative district boundaries, or new legislative district boundaries, should be used if there are any more legislative recall petitions filed in the next few weeks. Therefore, the old boundaries will be used. However, there is a second Republican Party lawsuit on this issue pending in a lower state court which hasn’t been withdrawn yet.
Americans Elect is now a qualified party in Mississippi. Mississippi has never required a petition for a party to qualify itself. Instead, a party is recognized by submitting a list of state officers, and also a list of congressional district committee officers. Mississippi has four U.S. House districts.
Mississippi is the only state that has never changed its law, on how a group becomes a qualified party. The law has existed since 1890. Mississipi’s experience shows that there is no need for states to require large petition hurdles for groups to become recognized parties.
Kevin Kennedy, a township committeemember in Belleville, New Jersey, has recently registered as a member of the Reform Party. Kennedy was first elected to that position in 1998, and has been re-elected ever since. Before he registered into the Reform Party, he was a registered Democrat. Belleville has a population of 35,926.
According to this story, it is possible Texas will move its primary for U.S. House and state legislative seats to May, even though the state would presumably holds its presidential primary, and its primary for statewide offices (such as U.S. Senate, and partisan judicial races) in March. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Christine Todd Whitman has told the press that she would be pleased if Jon Huntsman were to seek the Americans Elect presidential nomination. See this story on Politico. Whitman is one of the eight members of the Executive Committee of Americans Elect. The others are Peter Ackerman, Dennis Blair, Stephen W. Bosworth, Kahlil Byrd, Eliot R. Cutler, Irvine O. Hockaday Jr., and Joshua Levine.
The story is also interesting because Whitman talks briefly about her awkward encounters with certain Republican Party leaders, in the days since Whitman joined the Americans Elect leadership.
