Thanks to Independent Political Report for this story. The Wall Street Journal says here that Sharron Angle, this year’s Republican Party nominee for U.S. Senate, was a member of the Independent American Party between 1992 and 1997. She was one of the party’s sponsors when it re-qualified for the ballot in 1992. The Independent American Party is the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party. The Wall Street Journal does not mention the Constitution Party, but the newspaper’s story would have been of better quality if it had done so.

Sharron Angle is also lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit, Angle v Miller, which challenges Nevada election laws that say that initiative petition circulators must certify that they know that each signer is a registered voter. The lawsuit makes the obvious point that a circulator can’t know that, unless conceivably a petitioner might possess a hand-held computer that links to the list of registered voters.

Dan Hamburg placed first in a four-person race for Mendocino County Supervisor, 5th district, on June 8. But because he didn’t get as much as 50%, he faces a run-off in November. See this story.

Hamburg is a member of the Green Party and was its gubernatorial candidate in 1998. He is also a former Democratic member of Congress. Mendocino County is on the northern California coast, and formerly had a District Attorney who was a registered Libertarian.

The intense media interest in the South Carolina U.S. Senate race has started to garner publicity for the only candidate in the race who is not a major party nominee. He is Tom Clements, the Green Party nominee. See this story.