New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes the New York City Council will pass a bill to let him run for a third term in 2009. The vote is set for Thursday, October 23. Thomas Golisano, who was the Independence Party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1994, 1998, and 2002, says he will launch an advertising campaign against the idea, although that only makes sense if the October 23 vote is postponed. See this article for more details. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. New York City has term limits, passed by the voters, but the City Council is free to change the law without a vote of the voters.

Bloomberg is a registered independent, but he would be free to seek any party’s nomination in 2009, notwithstanding how he is registered. He once was a Democrat. He became a Republican in 2000 and was elected as a Republican in both 2001 and 2005. He switched his registration to independent in 2007, a change that set off a frenzy of speculation that he might run for president in 2008 as an independent.

On October 21, former Arkansas Democratic legislator Dwayne Dobbins asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to put him on the ballot as the Democratic nominee for State House, district 39. He had won the May primary but the party had removed him from the ballot anyway. Dobbins argues that the party had no authority to overturn the results of its own primary, without a court order. As noted in earlier blog posts about this matter, if Dobbins doesn’t get on the ballot, the only name on the ballot for this position will be Green Party nominee Richard Carroll.

Sarah Palin gave an impromptu press conference at the Colorado Springs airport, on the evening of October 19. She said, “I believe that anybody that would try to thwart a fair and clean election is not following American principles because part of being an American is protecting and being able to rely on free and fair elections.” See here for the entire transcript.

One wishes that someone would ask her opinion about the actions of Pennsylvania Republican Party officials this year, who filed a lawsuit, with seven attorneys, to remove Bob Barr from the Pennsylvania ballot. That attempt failed to accomplish anything for the people who filed the challenge, and it created a useful precedent that will help minor party and independent candidates in the future.