The Socialist Party USA will hold its national convention on October 9-11 in Newark, New Jersey, at the Hilton Gateway Hotel. For more information, see here.
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A U.S. District Court in Philadelphia will hear oral arguments in Constitution Party v Cortes on Monday, October 19, at 10 a.m., in the federal courthouse at 601 Market Street. The state will try to persuade the judge to dismiss the case without any further evidence. It would be valuable if people interested in this case could attend. The lawsuit, filed by the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties, challenges Pennsylvania’s unique system of charging candidates and parties for the costs of checking their petitions, if they fail to have enough valid signatures. It also challenges the careless way in which some counties count write-ins and others don’t, and the abitrary manner in which the state tallies write-ins for some candidates and not others, and finally it challenges the requirement that a party have approximately 1,000,000 registered voters before it can be on the November ballot without having to petition for its nominees.
On September 22, the lawsuit Constitution Party of West Virginia v Jezioro was voluntarily dismissed by the West Virginia state agency that runs public parks. The Constitution Party had won the case in U.S. District Court on June 3, 2009, and the state had appealed. But the state has now dropped its appeal. The lawsuit arose in 2008 when officials of the state parks refused to let the party’s petitions be circulated in a particular state park.
The September 23 issue of the Muncie, Indiana Star Press, has this editorial, seeming to give support to last week’s decision invalidating Indiana’s law requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID that has not expired.
An Arizona administrative law judge has just concluded a 4-day hearing on whether Representative Doug Quelland should be removed from the legislature for alleging violating campaign finance laws. See this story. A decision is expected by mid-November.