On May 8, U.S. Senator Robert Bennett lost his fight to get enough votes at the Republican state convention to be able to get his name on the June 22 primary. Bennett has been a U.S. Senator since 1992. See this story. Utah law says candidates who don’t get at least 35% at the state convention may not get their names on the primary ballot.

It is unknown if Senator Bennett would run as an independent if the law permitted him to do so. The story accurately explains that the deadline has passed; it was March 15. But if he did wish to run as an independent, he could probably overturn the deadline in court.

Many courts have ruled that independent petition deadlines, or even independent candidate deadlines for filing a declaration of candidacy, for non-presidential office, cannot be earlier than the primary (or the day before the primary). Such decisions have been won in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. The most important courts that have issued such rulings are the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the First, Third, Fourth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits. However, Utah is in the Tenth Circuit, which has never had a case over the deadline for non-presidential independent candidates.

Also, in 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a decision of a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Arkansas, striking down an April petition deadline for an independent candidate for state office. The Arkansas primary at that time was in May.

The only circuit that has upheld such deadlines is the Fifth Circuit, which upheld Texas’ declaration of candidacy deadline for non-presidential independents in 1996. That deadline is the first week in January.

On May 1, the South Carolina Green Party state convention nominated candidates for office, including the party’s first gubernatorial nominee in this state. He is Morgan Bruce Reeves, whose web page, www.morganreevesforgovernor.com, is at this link. The web page shows a 3-minute clip from a past Spartans-Trojans football game in which Reeves, who played in that game, received prominent attention.

Reeves will be a fusion nominee, because he is also the gubernatorial nominee of the United Citizens Party, the nation’s oldest state ballot-qualified political party that was founded specifically to represent African-Americans. The United Citizens Party has worked with the Green Party before. In 2000, when Ralph Nader was the Green Party nominee for president and before the Green Party was ballot-qualified in South Carolina, the United Citizens Party placed Nader on the ballot as its presidential nominee.

On May 4, Jason Olson of Independent Voice and Eric Bauman, vice-chair of the California Democratic Party and chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, debated for 15 minutes on KCRW Radio, the public radio station in Los Angeles. They were on the show “Which Way, L.A.?”

If your computer has software for listening to archived radio, use this link if you wish to listen. The Proposition 14 portions starts after 30 minutes of other topics, mostly on airline mergers.

Jason Olson’s assertion that independent voters in California must ask for a Democratic or Republican ballot is misleading, because it implies that if an independent voter does nothing, he or she will never receive a Democratic or Republican ballot. Actually, when an independent voter walks into a polling place on primary election day, a polling place official hands that voter a small card, which says, “When you registered to vote, you did not select a qualified political party. You will receive a ballot with nonpartisan contests and measures. You may also request the non-party member version of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party ballot. Please request one of these ballots from the pollworker.” At this point the voter is asked to choose between three alternatives, a non-partisan-Democratic ballot, a non-partisan Republican ballot, or a ballot that only has non-partisan items.

Ever since 2001, both the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party, have let independent voters vote in their primaries for Congress and state office. The Democratic Party also lets independents vote in its presidential primary, but the Republican Party does not.