The Socialist Party’s only candidate for the legislature in New Jersey this year has been removed from the November 2009 ballot, even though he submitted 150 signatures to meet a requirement of 100 signatures. Tino Rozzo had been running in Assembly District One, in the southern tip of New Jersey. Signatures are presumed to be valid unless a challenge is filed. Rozzo’s petition was challenged by a Democratic Party activist.

New Jersey elects its Assemblymembers every two years. In the last election in this district, in 2007, there had been no minor party or independent candidates. Each district elects two members. The 2007 vote had been: Democrats 27,420 and 23,978; Republicans 22,075 and 21,489.

Rozzo last ran for this seat in 2003, when he received 770 votes. Rozzo did not fight the recent challenge to his petition, and will instead be the Socialist Party’s candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Under a new procedure in New Jersey, each gubernatorial candidate during July must choose a Lieutenant Governor running mate. The gubernatorial candidates of the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties, still have not chosen their Lieutenant Governor candidates.

On September 15, Springer Publishing Company (one of the largest publishers of non-fiction science and social science books in the world) is set to release “Not Invited to the Party: How the Demopublicans Have Rigged the System and Left Independents Out in the Cold.”

The author is Economics Professor James Bennett. Bennett wrote a similar book last in 2008 which was published by Springer. Its name was “Stifling Political Competition: How Government has Rigged the System to Benefit Demopublicans and Exclude Third Parties.” That volume didn’t have a big impact because it was only in hardcover, was $99, and yet was relatively short. The new book is expanded and will be less expensive.

In 2006, Ohio’s procedure by which political parties get on the ballot was held unconstitutional. Almost three years have passed, and no bill has been introduced to write a new law to replace the old void one.

Under a federal court decision won by the Ohio Libertarian Party in 2008, as long as there is no valid ballot access law in place, the state cannot keep any party off the ballot, if it can show that it has a modicum of support. As a result, it is growing increasingly likely that the Libertarian, Green, Constitution and Socialist Parties will remain on the ballot automatically in 2010. Because Ohio’s Constitution requires all qualified political parties to nominate by primary, and because Ohio has its primary in May in 2010, even if the legislature passed a bill in early 2010, it could not impose requirements that would be in effect in 2010.

The Ohio legislature is still in session, but as soon as it passes a budget bill, it will recess for the summer, but will return in the autumn of 2009.