During September, the California legislature passed three bills that are probably of interest to readers of this blog. They are (1) SB 37, the National Popular Vote plan; (2) AB 583, to set up a pilot project for public funding of campaigns; (3) SB 1322, which removes some state laws that discriminate against present and past members of the Communist Party.

As of Sunday evening, September 28, it does not appear that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has acted on any of these three bills. However, according to this story, he is vetoing some bills just because he doesn’t have time to read them all, so some get an automatic veto just because he can’t cope with the workload.

On September 26, the 5th Circuit removed Bob Barr from the Louisiana ballot. The three judges were Carolyn King (a Carter appointee from Texas), James Dennis (a Clinton appointee from Louisiana), and Priscilla Owen (a Bush Jr. appointee from Texas). The action was taken without any hearing. The case is Libertarian Party et al v Dardenne, 08-30922. Technically, the ruling only stays the decision of the U.S. District Court, and a ruling on declaratory relief will be held after the election.

The five-page order says that the state will suffer irreparable injury if the stay is not granted. That irreparable injury is that “absentee voters in the military and overseas will receive two ballots with different candidates, with a resulting likelihood of confusion and duplicate voting.” The ruling also says, “We recognize that the stay will inflict harm on the Libertarian Party, but we believe that the harm may well be of their own making.” The party has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the stay.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released September 24 has these results for president: Obama 44%, McCain 42%, Nader 5%, Barr 2%, other or undecided 7%. See here. The presidential results are on page 14, question number 10.