Current Missouri law says the presidential primary should be in early February, but national Republican and Democratic Party rules say states (except for four particular states) must not be earlier than March. According to this story in Frontloading HQ, Missouri legislators may not pass the bill moving the state’s presidential primary to March.
Wired has this story about Righthaven, the company that contracted with various newspapers to seek out blogs that re-print newspaper stories in full, and then sue those blogs. For example, Righthaven sued Independent Political Report, and IPR had to pay several thousand dollars so that Righthaven would drop the lawsuit.
As the Wired story explains, one blogger fought back in federal court, and won a ruling that it had not violated copyright, and won $34,000 in attorneys fees against Righthaven. Thanks to How Appealing for the link.
On September 14, attorneys for intervenors asked the Third Circuit to rehear the Carl Lewis case. The request is that all 13 full-time judges on the Third Circuit participate. The case is Lewis v Guadagno, 11-3401. The issue is the constitutionality of New Jersey’s requirement that candidates for State Senate must have lived in the state for at least four years. UPDATE: here is the petition for a rehearing.
Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Chester) is about to introduce a bill that would provide that each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector. If this plan had been in effect in 2008, Republicans would have won ten electoral votes from Pennsylvania.
Senator Pileggi is seeking co-sponsors for his proposed bill. He won’t actually introduce the bill until that process is finished. He has been Senate Majority leader since 2006. Republicans hold both houses of the state legislature and the Governorship. The Governor has already indicated he would sign it, if it passes.
The wording of the proposed bill may or may not force candidates for presidential elector to live in the district they seek to represent. If the bill does have a residency requirement, that will make it more difficult for petitioning parties to get on the ballot. They will need to expend time before petitioning to find a resident in each district. Pennsylvania petitions for presidential candidates must include the names of the candidates for presidential elector.
New York held six special legislative elections on September 13. Both the Working Families Party, and the Green Party, had their own nominees in some of these elections. The Working Families nominee in the 54th Assembly district in Brooklyn, Jesus Gonzalez, polled 32%. His Democratic-Republican-Conservative opponent polled 44%, and an independent candidate polled 23%. Gonzalez’ showing is the best ever for a New York WFP nominee for the legislature. The previous best showing had been in 2006, for Joan Millman running in the 52nd district in Brooklyn. Millman had polled 22.62% on the WFP line.
The Green Party had its own nominee on September 13 in the 144th Assembly district in Buffalo. Gregory Horn polled 8%. His Democratic opponent polled 71% and his Republican opponent polled 21%. Horn’s showing was the best ever for a Green Party nominee for the New York legislature, excluding past races in which there was only one major party nominee running. The previous best Green Party showing for a New York legislative race with both a Democrat and a Republican also running had been in 2000, when Javier Enriquez had polled 7.36% in the 50th Assembly district in Brooklyn.
