The Texas Democratic Party does not permit Democrats to run in its presidential primary unless they pledge to “fully support” the party’s eventual presidential nominee. Congressman Dennis Kucinich refused to sign that oath in 2008, so was kept off the Texas Democratic primary ballot. He had challenged the party in court but lost the case in both U.S. District Court and the 5th circuit. He has decided not to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review.

However, he will ask the Democratic National Committee to tell the Texas Democratic Party that it should drop the oath. No other state unit of a major party has a similar oath for candidates in its presidential primaries.

On June 16, Washington, D.C. city councilmember Mary M. Cheh introduced a bill to let D.C. residents register to vote at the polls on election day. The bill won’t be assigned a number for several days.

The bill also authorizes the D.C. Board of Elections to impose “reasonable” filing fees on candidates for public office, and says the money will be used for election administration. If this part of the bill passes, it would be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court said in both Bullock v Carter, and Lubin v Panish, that mandatory filing fees can only be imposed for the purpose of keeping ballots uncrowded. Since D.C. doesn’t have crowded ballots, and since the proposed fees would be in addition to rather severe petition requirements that already serve to keep the ballot uncrowded, the fees would not withstand court challenge. Also the bill doesn’t have any bypass for candidates who can’t afford the fees, and that is also unconstitutional.

On June 15, Krist Novoselic dropped out of the August 2009 primary for County Clerk of Wahkiakum County, Washington. He got almost as much publicity by dropping out as he got by filing. See this story. He said he had always planned to withdraw, and that he had filed just to publicize his point that the Washington state “top-two” is not fair to political parties because it lets anyone on the ballot with that party label, no matter what the party thinks of the candidate.