When Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed HB 245 earlier this year, the bill took effect immediately, and had the effect of disqualifying the Constitution, Green and Working Families Parties from the ballot. The bill doubled the number of registered voters needed, from 306 registered members, to 612.
The Working Families Party has just finished another registration drive, and now has 617 registered members, so it is back on the ballot.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist has continued to say he is running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican, but a new poll shows his chances of being elected are better if he instead runs as an independent candidate. A Quinnipac Poll released April 15 shows:
Charlie Crist, Independent: 32%
Marco Rubio, Republican: 30%
Kendrick Meek, Democratic: 24%
other or undecided: 14%
The source of Crist’s strength is that he is very popular among Florida Democrats. All polls of the Republican primary show Crist losing decisively to Rubio. Crist must decide which way he will run no later than April 30. Florida hasn’t elected a minor party or independent candidate to statewide office since 1916, when Prohibition Party gubernatorial nominee Sidney J. Catts was elected over his Democratic, Republican, and Socialist opponents.
On April 15, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office said that the Green Party’s petition to be a recognized party is valid. The Green Party has had two party petitions validated in the last two weeks, in Arizona and Hawaii. Also, its Tennessee petition to place its gubernatorial candidate on the ballot as an independent was validated earlier this month. Therefore, the party has now qualified either itself, or its candidates, for the November 2010 ballot for statewide office in 20 states.
At this time exactly four years ago, the Green Party also enjoyed that status in 20 states.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has told the press that the U.S. House may vote on the bill to give the District of Columbia a voting member of the House, possibly as early as next week. See this story.
The bills are S.160 and HR 157. The Senate bill passed the Senate last year. It was not brought up in the House last year because an amendment was attached to require the D.C. government to relax its laws on restrictions on guns. Chances are, the political leadership of D.C. has decided to accept the gun amendment.
Recently, a Utah group that circulated an initiative petition filed a federal lawsuit, to keep the names and addresses of the signers from being made public. This is the same issue that the U.S. Supreme Court will be grappling with on April 28 in Doe v Reed. See this news story about the Utah lawsuit, which had a hearing on April 14 before U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups, a Bush, Jr. appointee.
The case is Utahns for Ethical Government v Barton, 2:10-cv-00333. The plaintiffs went to the trouble of suing and serving all 29 county clerks in Utah. The hearing is at 10:30 a.m. on April 15. Utahns for Ethical Government’s initiative is strongly opposed by the Utah Republican Party, and the lawsuit charges that many people who signed the initiative fear retribution if the list of names and addresses is made public.
