On November 12, the national committee of the Constitution Party chose Nashville, Tennessee, as the site for its 2012 presidential nominating convention. The exact dates haven’t been set yet, but they will be either in late April or early May.
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The November 18 issue of the Sacramento Bee has this editorial, criticizing the California Independent Voters Project for treating some California legislators to a free trip to a Hawaii resort. The California Independent Voters Project was the original sponsor of the “top-two” idea in California. It had planned to qualify the idea through the initiative process. In the end, the California legislature put the idea on the June 2010 ballot, so no initiative petition was needed.
California Independent Voters Project is a non-profit organization, so it is not required to reveal the source of the money that was used to pay for the legislators’ trips. But it appears that the money came from for-profit corporations. Also, because CAIVP is a non-profit organization, it was able to send campaign literature in support of the top-two measure (Proposition 14) at the least expensive postal rates.
The Sacramento Bee editorial does not mention that California Independent Voters Project was the original author of Proposition 14. The Fresno Bee had a story about CAIVP and the Hawaii matter on November 16, and that story does mention the connection between Proposition 14 and CAIVP. Also see this commentary.
On November 16, a state court in Maine dismissed Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and its allies, over Democratic attempts to keep Nader off the ballot in two dozen states in 2004. See this article. The 20-page decision says the Democratic Party’s activities in 2004 are actions that are protected by the First Amendment.
Kathleen Curry, Colorado’s only independent state legislator, still does not know if she won the election on write-in votes. The odds seem to suggest that she lost narrowly to her Democratic Party opponent, Roger Wilson. See this story.
On November 17, the Associated Press concluded in this article that Lisa Murkowski won the U.S. Senate election in Alaska this year.