The hearing for King vs. Bowen was held this morning in Sacramento. The case is to decide which faction of the California American Independent Party (AIP) has legal control of the state party, and therefore, which presidential ticket (Chuck Baldwin or Alan Keyes) will appear on the AIP line in California.
The judge promised to announce his decision by the end of today. Check Ballot Access News for the result.
Paul Jacob, Rick Carpenter, and Susan Johnson, who are being charged with criminal acts for hiring out-of-state initiative circulators in Oklahoma, have been told that their hearing is now set for November 17.
The Ohio Green Party will file a lawsuit in federal court in Columbus on August 26, asking that it be placed on the November ballot. Under the recent precedents putting the Libertarian and Socialist Parties on the ballot, the lawsuit is likely to succeed. If it does, this will be the first time the Green Party label will have been printed on any Ohio ballot.
On August 22, the Democratic Party of Charleston County, South Carolina, asked a federal court to let it intervene in the pending lawsuit South Carolina Green Party v South Carolina State Election Commission. The Democratic Party simultaneously filed a brief, arguing that the Green Party nominee for State House, Eugene Platt, should be kept off the November ballot. The Court is very likely to grant the Democrats the right to intervene.
The issue is whether someone who has already been nominated by a minor party, and who later runs in a major party primary and loses that primary, should be kept off the general election ballot entirely. South Carolina permits fusion. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “sore loser” laws in 1974, Platt argues he isn’t a “sore loser”. He is an “ambitious winner”, i.e., someone who wins one party’s nomination and then tries for another party’s nomination.
The Democratic Party brief makes much of the fact that in 1976, a federal court in South Carolina kept some United Citizens Party nominees off the general election ballot. But the United Citizens candidates in that case had first lost the Democratic primary, and afterwards had received the United Citizens nominations. Thus, they were “sore losers”.
The University of North Carolina’s TV station will be hosting two televised gubernatorial debates, on September 24 and October 8. All three candidates who are on the ballot are invited. The three candidates on the ballot are the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian nominees.
This is the first time that any minor party candidate for Governor or U.S. Senator in North Carolina has been included in a televised debate with his or her major party opponents. Congratulations to Mike Munger. For more about his campaign, see www.munger08.com. UNC-TV has said that even if one of the major party nominees fails to show up, the debate will go on without him or her. Thanks to Tom Howe for this news.
