Delaware Senator David McBride (D-Hawks Nest) has introduced SB 12, a proposed constitutional amendment to set up a state initiative process. Delaware has never had the initiative for state laws.
No state has added the initiative process since Mississippi did so in the early 1990’s.
Some Independent Party legislative candidates, and some Working Families Party legislative candidates, received public funding in 2008. This article in the AmericanRepublican newspaper details how the candidates used their public funds.
Illinois’ new Governor, Pat Quinn, wants the legislature to move the 2010 primary from February to September. See this Chicago Tribune article.
On January 30, the 11th circuit ruled that the lawsuit DiMaio v Democratic National Committee, no. 08-13241, is moot. Victor DiMaio had sued the party over its 2008 convention rule that forbids presidential primaries earlier than February, with an exception for New Hampshire and South Carolina. The decision says that the Democratic National Committee hasn’t passed its rules for the 2012 primaries yet. The decision says that since the party presumably will do this in 2011, there will be time to re-litigate this in 2011 and 2012.
The other pending case over the timing of the Florida primaries is directed against the state, not against the Democratic Party. Since the Florida election law continues to say that presidential primaries are in January, presumably this other case is not in danger of being dismissed for mootness. That case is Ausman v Browning, still pending in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee.
On January 30, the Republican National Committee chose Michael Steele of Maryland to be its new national chair. One of the other candidates for chair, Ken Blackwell, dropped out and endorsed Steele after placing last in the fourth ballot.
Blackwell, a former Ohio Secretary of State, behaved with hostility toward minor parties and independent candidates while he was Secretary of State in 2003 and 2004. In late 2003, he rejected the Ohio Libertarian Party’s petition because the wording on the petition changed while the party was conducting its petition. When the party started its petition, the petition was supposed to say, “The penalty for election falsification is imprisonment for not more than 6 months or a fine of not more than $1,000 or both.” During the drive, the state changed the petition so that it said instead, “Whoever commits election falsification is guilty of a felony of the 5th degree.” The party didn’t know about the wording change, and was shocked when it submitted the petition and Blackwell rejected it because of the wording.
In 2004, Blackwell rejected Ralph Nader’s independent petition because most of the signatures had been collected by people that perhaps were domiciled outside Ohio (although this was never resolved). At approximately the same time Blackwell rejected Nader’s petition, he waived the rules to allow an initiative petition to appear on the ballot even though its circulators had not been domiciled in Ohio.
Blackwell’s behavior kept Nader off the 2004 ballot, and kept the Libertarian Party off the 2004 ballot (although it qualified its presidential candidate as an independent). However, after the 2004 election was over, courts struck down the Ohio procedure for new parties to qualify, and struck down the Ohio law barring out-of-state circulators from working on an independent candidate petition, so Blackwell’s behavior was ultimately good for ballot access.
