On November 25, well-known PBS TV host Charlie Rose conducted a 20-minute interview with Elliot Ackerman and Kahlil Byrd, two of the most prominent leaders of Americans Elect. See it here.
At ten minutes into the interview, Rose asks why Americans Elect seems to only be interested in contesting the presidential election. Byrd says that it is quite likely that in 2014 and 2016, it will have nominees for Congress and state office. Thanks to Alex Hammer for the link.
Although Maine’s legislature is not in session, some of its committees are meeting. According to this story, recently the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee wrote a bill to abolish Maine’s public funding program for candidates for state office. In Maine, legislative committees are Joint committees, composed of members of each of the two houses.
Last month, the Party for Socialism and Liberation announced that it will run Peta Lindsay for President, and Yari Osorio for Vice-President. This will be the party’s second presidential campaign. In 2008, it ran Gloria La Riva for President. She polled 6,818 votes in tbe nation.
Lindsay is age 27, and Osorio is age 26 and was born in Colombia. Thus, neither meet the constitutional qualifications to hold the offices they are seeking. However, some legal decisions during the past three years have suggested that elections officials cannot keep presidential or vice-presidential candidates off the ballot because of constitutional qualifications. For example, in 2010, the California State Court of Appeals said the Secretary of State “has no discretion for the general election ballot…With respect to general elections, section 6901 directs that the Secretary of State must (must is in italics) place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates.” This decision is Keyes v Bowen, and dealt with President Obama’s qualifications. Alan Keyes, who had charged that Obama did not meet the constitutional qualifications, had then appealed this decision to the State Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, but both courts refused to hear the appeal, so the Court of Appeals decision stands.
On December 1, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 3463, which ends public funding for presidential candidates. The House had passed another bill to do the same thing back on January 25, 2011. That bill was HB 359. Neither bill is expected to pass the Senate. See this story. HB 3463 also eliminates the federal agency that helps states with vote-counting machine technology, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
The attorney for the North Dakota Libertarian Party, Oliver B. Hall, has sent this letter to North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger. The letter explains that the recent 8th circuit decision in the party’s ballot access case said that once a party completes the 7,000-signature petition, it need never complete that petition again.
However, the apparent language of the statute, and precedent, say that parties always must re-petition in North Dakota, unless they happen to poll 5% of the vote for either President or Governor in presidential election years, or 5% for Secretary of State in midterm years. The letter asks that the Secretary of State express his opinion.
Hall had asked for reconsideration of the Eighth Circuit opinion, and also had suggested that the court might at least want to address its apparent error, but the Court simply denied the request and did not re-do its opinion.
