Professor James Bennett’s new book, “Not Invited to the Party: How the Demopublicans Have Rigged the System and Left Independents Out in the Cold” will be released on October 13, 2009. It is hardcover, 211 pages, and will sell for $24.50.

Professor Bennett is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and has published at least 18 other books. He wrote an earlier version of “Not Invited to the Party”, which was released a year ago. However, that book was only 141 pages and sold for $99, so it didn’t get the attention that the new version will receive. Last year’s version was “Stifling Political Competition: How Government Has Rigged the System to Benefit Demopublicans and Exclude Third Parties.”

On October 3, Brett McClafferty, who is age 21, said he will drop his lawsuit to overturn a city ordinance that requires candidates to be at least age 23 to be on the City Council. He had filed it on September 24, 2009. The Streetsboro, Ohio election is on November 3, 2009, and early voting had already started by the time of the first hearing in the case. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Lioi had already ruled she would not stop early voting. The case was McClafferty v Portage County Board of Elections. See this story. Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link.

As noted earlier, a federal court in Idaho ruled that the lawsuit filed by the Republican Party, over whether the party has a right to a close its primary to non-Republicans, cannot proceed without evidence that non-Republicans have been voting in Republican Party primaries. The party now says it will commission field research to gather evidence on what types of people voted in its May 2008 primary. Both sides in the lawsuit seem to agree that the lawsuit will take quite a while to resolve, and that the case will not be decided in time to alter the May 2010 primary.

Idaho is one of the 21 states in which the voter registration form does not ask people which party, if any, they are joining. Thus, on primary day, any voter in Idaho is free to decide which party’s primary to vote in.