Stewart Alexander Declares for Peace & Freedom Gubernatorial Nomination

Posted on by January 2, 2009
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Stewart Alexander has declared that he will seek the Peace & Freedom Party gubernatorial nomination in California in 2010. He was the Socialist Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008.

No member of the Socialist Party has ever before captured a Peace & Freedom Party nomination for a top office (president, vice-president, governor, or U.S. Senator). But Alexander has deep ties with the Peace & Freedom Party. If he gets the nomination, he will be the first male Peace & Freedom Party gubernatorial nominee since 1970. The party has always run a woman for Governor in all the years in which it was on the ballot, for the period 1974 through 2006.

Oklahoma Legislator Introduces Bill to Require Candidates to Submit Birth Certificate

Posted on by January 1, 2009
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Oklahoma Representative Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow) has pre-filed a bill, requiring candidates for public office to submit a copy of their Birth Certificates. Ritze is a professor of Forensic Science and a physician, and was just elected to his first term in the legislature in November 2008. Ritze introduced his bill because he does not believe that President-Elect Barack Obama has demonstrated that he meets the constitutional qualifications.

Ritze also says that he is trying to persuade U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe to object to counting electoral college votes for Obama, when Congress counts the electoral votes on January 8.

The Oklahoma legislature does not convene until February. Oklahoma legislators are free to pre-file bills, but the Oklahoma legislature’s web page does not yet have the text of pre-filed bills, so the text of Ritze’s bill is not available. Since presidential nominees of qualified parties do not actually file for the November ballot in any state, it is not clear how Ritze’s bill can accomplish its objective, relative to general election presidential nominees of qualified parties.

Republicans Take Control of All 95 County Election Commissions in Tennessee

Posted on by January 1, 2009
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Tennessee’s Constitution provides that County Election Commissions be composed of 5 members. Three are appointed by the party that has the most seats in the State House of Representatives, and two are appointed by the party with the second-largest number of Representatives.

Because Republicans won more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives, in the November 2008 election, control of all 95 county commissions now switches from Democratic majority to Republican majority, for the first time since the 1968 election. See this story.

The Tennessee legislature appoints the Secretary of State. The current Secretary of State, Riley Darnell, is a Democrat who has served since 1993. He hopes to keep his job by persuading some Republican legislators to support him. See this story about Darnell.

Socialist Labor Party Closes Office

Posted on by December 31, 2008
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The Socialist Labor Party, the original party of socialism in the United States, stopped running candidates for partisan public office after 1981, but has continued to publish its newspaper, The People, on a bimonthly schedule. However, due to a shortage of funds, the paper hasn’t been published since the March-April 2008 issue.

The SLP closed its national office, which had been in San Jose, California, on September 1, and shipped a great deal of archival material to Duke University and also to the Wisconsin State Historical Society. Both institutions have good collections relating to the history of many minor parties.

The SLP hopes to resume publication of The People in 2009.

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Again Denies Relief to Nader on 2004 Costs

Posted on by December 31, 2008
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On December 31, 2008, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court again refused to reconsider the matter of costs that Ralph Nader was ordered to pay to the people who challenged his petition in 2004. The original request for reconsideration had been based on new revelations that the challengers had been indicted for using state resources. The new request had rebutted the Commonwealth Court’s response. That Commonwealth Court’s response had been that the money is owed to different entities than the entities that were indicted. The new request for reconsideration had proved that assertion to be mistaken. But, the Commonwealth Court on December 31 simply denied the request without explanation. This will now be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.