The Lubbock, Texas Avalanche-Journal has this story, drawing attention to the small number of candidates on the November 2010 Texas ballot for state legislature.

Sixteen seats are up in the State Senate.  Democrats have candidates in eight of them, and Libertarians are also running in eight State Senate races.  There are no independent candidates for the State Senate on the ballot, and no Green Party nominees for State Senate.  Republicans have nominees in all 16 races.

All 150 seats are up in the State House of Representatives.  Democrats aren’t running anyone in 55 of the seats, and Republicans aren’t running anyone in 38 of the seats.  This means that in 93 races out of 150, there is no Republican-Democratic contest.  The Libertarian Party has 50 candidates for State House, and the Greens have two.  Also there are 2 independent candidates for State House.

The article mentions that the petition drive to put the Green Party on the ballot cost over $500,000, yet doesn’t make the obvious conclusion that if lack of choices is a problem, it is obvious that the ballot access laws are too stringent.  The article is incorrect to say that no minor party has ever won a seat in the Texas legislature.  Minor parties elected Texas state legislators in the past, before any petition was required to place any party on the ballot.  In 1920 the American Party elected four state representatives.  In each election 1892 through 1902, the Peoples Party elected state legislators.  In 1894, 22 Peoples Party members were elected to the House.  A Prohibition Party member was elected to the House in 1886, and Greenback Party members were elected in 1878 and 1880.  The American “Know-Nothing” Party elected Texas legislators in 1855 and 1857.

On September 10, three of the Green Party nominees in Arizona who were considered “outsiders” by party leaders withdrew, even though a court ruled yesterday that they should be on the ballot.  See this story.  Ironically, some or all of the three may be on the ballot anyway, because ballots in some jurisdictions had already been printed before they withdrew.

Another two of these nominees had already withdrawn a few days before the lawsuit filed by party leaders had been heard, so those two had been dismissed from the lawsuit.

The remaining “outsider” candidates who will be on the ballot, even though the party leadership rejected them, are:  (1) Richard Grayson, for US House, 6th district, but he was not recruited by any Republican and has insisted that he should not have been rejected by the party leadership.  He got 6 write-ins in the Green Party primary.  (2) Anthony Goshorn, for State Senate 17th district.  He got 4 write-ins.  (3) Andrew Blischak, State Rep, 20th district.  He got 1 write-in.  (4) Thomas Meadows, for Treasurer.  He got 60 write-ins.  (5) Theodore Gomez, Corporation Commissioner.  He got 39 write-ins.  (6) Benjamin Pearcy, Corporation Commissioner.  He got 36 write-ins.  Arizona is electing two Corporation Commissioners this year.

On September 8, U.S. Senator Roland Burris asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court opinion that says the only candidates on the ballot in this year’s special election for U.S. Senate should be the same candidates who are running for the six-year term.  See this story.  The case was Judge v Quinn, but is now styled Burris v Judge.  The original lawsuit had been filed in 2009 by Illinois voters who asked the federal courts to hold a special election for the two-month term that runs from November 2, 2010 until early January 2011.  Burris intervened in that case.  Here is Burris’s Emergency Application.

After the 7th circuit had ruled that Illinois must hold such a special election, the U.S. District Court had somewhat arbitrarily ruled that the nominees on the November 2010 ballot for the full 6-year term should also be the nominees listed on the ballot for the special election.  Burris is not running for the full term, but he would like to be the Democratic nominee for the short term.  The U.S. District Court order, in effect, took the choice of a nominee away from the political parties, and also the voters.  Burris was unable to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in this case until September 8, because it was only on September 8 that the 7th circuit denied him any relief.  Burris also suggests an alternate form of relief, that the special election be canceled.