The Pennsylvania Green Party, and the Pennsylvania Libertarian Party, both had legislative candidates in 2010 who set new records for each of those parties in legislative campaigns in that state.

The Green Party nominee for State House, 194th district, Hugh Giordano, received 18.50% of the vote in a race that also included a Democrat and a Republican. Giordano almost outpolled the Republican, Timothy Downey, who got 19.77%. The district is partly in Montgomery County and partly in Philadelphia County. Giordano is a 26-year-old organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). He won the endorsement of one of the Democrats who had sought the Democratic nomination for this seat. Giordano’s share of the vote is the highest for any Green Party nominee (who was not simultaneously the nominee of the Democratic Party) for Pennsylvania legislative races. The previous Green Party best percentage for a Pennsylvania legislative race had been 17.43% in 2006, but that was a race with only one major party nominee.

The Libertarian Party nominee for State House, 120th district, Tim Mullen, received 14.91% of the vote in a race that also included a Democrat and a Republican. The district is in Luzerne County, which contains Wilkes-Barre. Mullen is a health care professional and a veteran of both Iraq wars. He knocked on the doors of a majority of the voters in the district. He was endorsed by the Luzerne County Controller, as well as the Republican nominee for the 120th district from the 2006 election. He is the only Libertarian for Pennsylvania legislature (running against opponents from both major parties) who has ever exceeded 8.81% of the vote.

Minor party candidates in Pennsylvania, especially for an office that is not close to the top of the ballot, suffer from that state’s straight-ticket device. The last time a minor party elected anyone to the Pennsylvania legislature was 1934, when the Socialist Party re-elected its two legislators from Reading.

Several residents of the United States who are not U.S. citizens have sued to win the ability to make campaign contributions in federal elections. On January 7, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that they have standing to pursue their case. Here is the decision in Bluman v Federal Election Commission, 10-1766, in Washington, D.C. U.S. law already lets permanent resident aliens contribute. But aliens who are here legally, and may work in the U.S. legally, but who lack permanent status, are barred from contributing.

Judge Urbina also ruled that the case should go to a 3-judge U.S. District Court, to challenge the law itself that makes contributions from aliens illegal. But, a separate lawsuit will be needed if the same plaintiffs also want to challenge the regulations on that subject, because a lawsuit against the regulations must go before a single U.S. District Court, not a 3-judge court.

See this news story from Courthouse News Service, which gives details about the individuals who brought the case, and why they are so passionate about their desire to make campaign contributions.

On January 13, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards was released from federal prison. See this story. Edwards is the person who invented the “top-two” election system. He not only persuaded the Louisiana legislature to pass the idea in 1975; he also carried on a high-powered campaign to persuade the U.S. Justice Department, Voting Rights Section, to approve the idea. The Department had previously rejected the idea when Mississippi had passed it.

Edwards believed the top-two system would make it easier for conservative Democrats to continue to win elections in Louisiana. Louisiana has been using that system for state and local elections for the past 35 years. Louisiana used it for congressional elections between 1978 and 2006, and during those years, no incumbent member of either House of Congress was ever defeated for re-election (except in 1992 when, because of redistricting, incumbents had to run against each other). Washington state started using the top-two system in 2008, and no incumbent member of Congress from that state has been defeated for re-election either, since top-two has been in effect.