On March 22, a Pennsylvania jury returned guilty verdicts on some charges against former Democratic legislative employees, and a former state legislator, for using state resources on campaigns to help Democratic candidates.

The jury did not convict any of the defendants for using state resources to bring petition challenges to either Ralph Nader in 2004, or to the Green Party’s statewide ticket in 2006. The foreman of the jury told a reporter after the verdict, “Every Democrat across the state was doing this (working on the petition challenges). The prosecutor wanted to single out just Mr. Veon and his office and make it seem like they were running the whole thing. We knew better.” See this story. Thanks to Larry Otter for the link.

On March 23, the Tennessee legislative committee that had planned to hear HB 3060 removed the bill from its agenda. This probably signifies that the bill is dead.

HB 3060 would make it possible for the speaker of the Tennessee House, Kent Williams, to run for re-election in the Republican primary. He is a Republican, but he was elected by the votes of the Democrats in the House. The House has a one-vote Republican majority, but Democrats retained influence in the House by putting Williams into office. The Republican Party considers Williams an enemy and is not letting him file for re-election in the primary, so far. The deadline for filing for primaries is April 1.

HB 3060 said that anyone could file simultaneously as an independent candidate, and as a write-in in a party primary. It now seems somewhat likely that Williams will run for re-election as an independent candidate, or possibly his party will relent before April 1 and let him file for the primary ballot. Independent candidates in Tennessee only need 25 signatures so Williams will have no trouble filing as an independent on the deadline, if that is his only choice.

Carl P. Paladino is a New York Republican who has virtually announced that he is running for Governor this year. He seems to have little support at the Republican Party upcoming state endorsements convention, so he will need to collect 15,000 signatures of registered Republicans to get on the primary ballot. The other two prominent Republicans running for Governor, Rick Lazio and Steve Levy, do have substantial support at the state convention, so they may not need to circulate any primary petitions to be on the primary ballot.

Paladino also says that he will circulate general election petitions under the “Tea Party” label. See this article. The article does not make it clear if Paladino will create the Tea Party line even if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination.