In 2004, various law firms, and other organizations, spent millions of dollars challenging Ralph Nader’s independent candidacy’s ballot access in 18 states. On November 9, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the Federal Election Commission had no duty to investigate whether this spending violated the federal campaign finance laws.

Federal campaign laws make it illegal for corporations to contribute money to federal candidates or to political parties. Nader had charged that the Democratic National Committee had been the beneficiary of a great deal of contributions from incorporated law firms that did so much of the work to remove Nader from various ballots. Nader had asked the FEC to investigate, but the FEC had declined to do so. Nader had then sued the FEC, but the court decision says there is not strong enough evidence that the law firms were coordinating with the Democratic National Committee, or whether they were just doing it on their own. The opinion even assumes that although one member of the Democratic National Committee was herself actively involved in the legal challenge, there is no reason to believe she was coordinating her work with the Democratic Party. Here is the 23-page decision. The case is Nader v FEC, cv-10-989, in Washington, D.C.

On November 8, Hartford, Connecticut, held an election for city council. Nine at-large seats were up, and the race is partisan. The law says no party may run more than six nominees. The six Democratic nominees won, and three of the Working Families Party nominees also won. The WFP had run four nominees. Republicans ran three nominees, and there were three independent candidates, but neither the Republicans nor the independents won any seats. See this story. The chart in the article, showing winners, erroneously fails to show a checkmark next to the name of Democratic nominee David McDonald (the newspaper chart intended to show a checkmark next to the name of each winnner).

In 2007 in Hartford, the Working Families Party had elected two council members and the Republicans had elected one. The Working Families council members who were re-elected are Luis Cotto and Larry Deutsch; the new WFP member is Cynthia Jennings. Thanks to Dominik Kot for the link.

On November 8, the Federal Election Commission issued a press release, mentioning that a few weeks ago, it sent a check for $17,689,800 to the Republican National Committee, and a check for the same amount to the Democratic National Committee, so that each of these two parties can pay for the costs of their 2012 national conventions.

The Democratic convention is the latest in U.S. history. It is September 3-6, 2012, in Charlotte. The Republican convention is August 27-30 in Tampa. Because the Democratic convention is so late, all the states have laws to say that qualified parties need not notify elections officials of the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees until 60 days before the general election. The 2012 election is on November 6.