On the weekend of October 22-24, a Perot Reunion will be held at the Hyatt Regency Airport at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.  Ross Perot is expected to attend the Saturday night dinner.  The purpose of the event is for people who worked together on the Perot presidential campaigns to enjoy each other’s company again.  It is not an event for political activity.

Registration begins at 1 p.m. on Friday, October 22, and the reception begins at 6 p.m.  On Saturday the event starts at 9 a.m. with informal conversation.  A panel discussion, “The Perot Years, a Retrospective Look” will be held 1-4 p.m.  That is followed by “open mike”, with the suggestion, “Bring your funniest story.”  The dinner is at 7 p.m.

Sunday morning will also provide time for informal conversation.  The event costs $100.  Those who are interested should send payment no later than October 15, to the Perot Reunion, PO Box 7499, Tallahassee Fl 32314-7499.

On August 24, Vermont held primaries for the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive Parties.  Vermont does not have registration by party, and any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot.

The Democratic primary ballot was chosen by 74,633 voters; the Republican primary ballot by 30,058 voters; and the Progressive Party primary ballot by 553 voters.

By comparison, in 2008, when there were four parties entitled to their own primary, the number of voters choosing the September primary ballot of each party was:  Democratic 23,499; Republican 12,444; Progressive 470; Liberty Union 172.

Liberty Union Party was not entitled to its own primary in 2010 because none of its statewide nominees in 2008 polled as much as 5% of the vote.  However, Liberty Union is still a ballot-qualified party in Vermont, nominating by convention this year.

On September 3, a Washington State Superior Court in Thurston County ruled that the Secretary of State may release the names and addresses of the people who signed various initiative petitions circulated by Tim Eyman, over the last ten years.  Last year, Eyman had filed a lawsuit to keep the information private.  It is Eyman v Reed, 09-2-02447-0.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in Doe v Reed that people who sign ballot measure petitions have no automatic federal constitutional right to keep the information from being released to the public.  But, the U.S. Supreme Court also said that if the signers can show they are likely to be injured if the information is released, then they do have privacy protection.  In the case of the various Eyman tax initiatives, no one alleged that the signers would be harmed.  The question of whether the names and addresses of people who signed the petition against same-sex civil unions is still pending in U.S. District Court.