The December 14 issue of the Los Angeles Daily News has this op-ed in support of Instant Runoff Voting, by Gautam Dutta of the New America Foundation.
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The Hartford Courant has this editorial, dated December 15, calling on the Connecticut legislature to pass a bill this month, making the state’s public funding law non-discriminatory.
Steven Greenhut, a regular columnist for the Orange County Register, has this commentary today on the California measure that will appear on the ballot in June 2010 as the “top-two open primary”.
On December 11, the Connecticut Green Party filed this brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit. The case is Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, 09-3941. The hearing is January 13, 2010. The case concerns the state’s system of public funding for candidates for state office, which are highly discriminatory in favor of Democrats and Republicans.
The Green Party’s brief is 118 pages. Highlights include footnote 34, which says, “Defendants’ own witness, State Senator Peter Mills of Maine, confirmed that third party candidacies on the state legislative level have never posed a threat to the public fisc under Maine’s public financing system.” Maine’s public funding program does not discriminate for or against any candidate on the basis of that candidate’s partisan membership or independent status.
Also worth reading is footnote 22, which explains that if Connecticut’s existing system had been in place in 1990, Lowell Weicker could never have succeeded in winning the governorship as the nominee of a new political party. Weicker has been a witness for the Green Party in this lawsuit.
On December 14, Missouri State Senator Joan Bray introduced a bill to improve the ballot access procedures for newly-qualifying parties. It is SB 679.
There is a flaw in the existing Missouri petition procedure for new and previously unqualified parties. That procedure is a party petition, a petition that asks potential signers if they support placing that party on the ballot. Such petitions normally don’t include the names of any candidates. Thirty-nine states have such procedures, including Missouri. After the petition has been circulated and found to have enough valid signatures, the group becomes a qualified party. It then chooses its nominees.
The problem with the Missouri procedure is that, because of a drafting flaw in 1993, if the group wants to nominate someone for president, the petition must carry the name of the presidential candidate and the group’s nominees for presidential elector. This peculiar provision for president contradicts the entire purpose of having a party-petition procedure, which is to let a group get on the ballot before it has chosen its nominees. SB 679 would correct the error. Thanks to Ken Bush for finding a sponsor for this bill and for the news.