Rhode Island Republican Party officials are split over a proposal to close the party’s primaries to voters who have not been registered Republicans for the preceding 90 days, according to this story in the Warwick Beacon. Some decision is likely by the end of the month.
Currently, registered independents in Rhode Island are free to vote in any party’s primary. Rhode Island has three ballot-qualified parties, Democratic, Republican, and Moderate.
On January 5, Georgia held a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 22nd district. Georgia special elections put party labels on the ballot, but parties don’t have nominees. Individuals file by paying a filing fee, but no petition is needed. Three Democrats and one Libertarian appeared on the ballot.
The results: Democrat Hardie Davis 48.42%; Democrat Harold Jones 39.99%; Libertarian Taylor Bryant 9.14%; Democrat Sandra Scott 2.42%. See the Secretary of State’s election results web page here.
The last time this seat was up, in November 2008, the vote had been: Democratic 79.5%, Republican 20.5%.
Article One, Section 6, of the U.S. Constitution says, “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time.”
On December 31, 2009, a foreign service officer asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal in a case that argues that Hillary Clinton may not serve as Secretary of State, because she was in the U.S. Senate when the salary of the Secretary of State was increased by Congress. Clinton was a U.S. Senator from New York from 2001 through early 2009. The case is Rodearmel v Clinton, 09-797. The lower court, a 3-judge U.S. District Court, had ruled that the plaintiff does not have standing. The government’s defense has been that in 2009, when Hillary Clinton was appointed Secretary of State, that Congress had immediately passed a new bill, lowering the salary of the Secretary of State down to what it had been. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news. The government’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court filing is due February 4.
Rodearmel is represented by Judicial Watch. See its web page here for more about this case.
An independent candidate in Georgia, Eugene Moon, is launching an attempt to get on the ballot for U.S. House in 2010, in the 9th district. Here is his web page. The web page notes that the legal requirement is over 21,000 valid signatures, plus he must pay a filing fee of over $6,000. As noted many times previously on this blog, no one has completed the Georgia petition for that office since 1964. No candidate in history, in any state, has ever overcome a petition hurdle for that office in excess of 12,919 signatures, if the signatures were checked.
The Georgia 9th district is in the northwest part of the state. No incumbent is running in that district this year. The current incumbent is leaving Congress so as to run for Governor.
When a candidate did succeed in 1964 in Georgia with this type of petition, the number required was 6,500 signatures. Back then, the Georgia petitions were due in October of the election year and they were not checked for validity. The candidate who successfully petitioned in Georgia in 1964 was Milton Lent, an independent.
The Charleston, South Carolina, Post & Currier has this story about the oral argument in the State Supreme Court, in the Green Party’s ballot access case. The argument was on January 6. A decision is likely in a few months. The issue was a state law that gives a political party the power to go to court and get an injunction to stop someone from campaigning for an office in the general election, if that individual had tried and failed to get that party’s nomination.
