Pennsylvania Hearing to Remove Barr Changed to September 5

Posted on by August 30, 2008
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The Republican Party challenge to Bob Barr’s Pennsylvania ballot position has been moved from September 4 to September 5 (Friday). It will be at 10 a.m. in Courtroom One, Widener Bldg., 1339 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Experienced election law attorney Sam Stretton will be defending Barr. The objector does not dispute the validity of the statewide Libertarian petition. Instead, he says it was improper to use a stand-in presidential candidate in the period June and July, because by then the Libertarian Party knew who its real presidential candidate would be. But, under that theory, the party would have been stuck with two separate petitions, one listing Rochelle Etzel for president, and another one listing Bob Barr for president. Neither one would have had enough signatures, and there is no procedure for combining two different petitions with different names on them.

Stand-ins are well-recognized in Pennsylvania law. All petitions carry a substitution committee, which has the authority to appoint the new nominee after the stand-in withdraws.

2008, the Year the Major Parties Started to Catch Up with Minor Parties on Candidate Diversity

Posted on by August 30, 2008
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The first major party to nominate a woman for vice-president was the Democratic Party, in 1984. Now, in 2008, the Republican Party is also about to name a woman vice-presidential nominee.

The first major party to nominate a black for president or vice-president is the Democratic Party in 2008.

On the matter of diversity for presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the major parties are decades behind minor parties. The first minor party to name a woman for vice-president, and to actually receive valid votes, was the Prohibition Party in 1924. It named Marie Brehm for vice-president. The first minor party to name a woman for president, and to actually receive valid votes, was the Communist Party. It named Charlene Mitchell in 1968.

The first minor party to name a black for either president or vice-president, and to actually receive valid votes, was the Communist Party in 1932. It names James Ford for vice-president. The first minor party to name a black for president was the Socialist Workers Party, which nominated Clifton DeBerry in 1964.

Many have asserted that the Equal Rights Party of the late 19th century was the first minor party to set these records. But the Equal Rights Party did not actually nominate any candidates for presidential elector and then print up ballots naming those candidates for presidential elector. The party was free to do that, but did not do that. Svend Petersen, author of A Statistical History of the American Presidential Elections, meticulously went through the records of the vote for presidential electors, sent in by each state to the National Archives. He found records for minor party tickets that polled as few votes as 72 votes in the entire nation. That was the national vote total for Gerrit Smith, the 1852 presidential nominee of the Liberty Party. But he found no votes for an Equal Rights ticket in either the 1870’s or the 1880’s. Other researchers came to the same conclusion.

California Senate Passes Public Funding Pilot Project Bill

Posted on by August 30, 2008
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On August 29, the California Senate passed AB 583, which sets up a pilot program for public funding. Specifically, it provides that in 2014, candidates for Secretary of State could receive public funding. Democrats and Republicans would need qualifying contributions from 7,500 people; independent candidates would need such contributions from 15,000 people. The bill is probably unconstitutional on that score, under this year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision Davis v Federal Election Commission.

AB 583 must now return to the Assembly, since the Senate version provides that funding for the program be from state income taxpayer voluntary check-offs (which would add to the taxpayers’ bill), whereas the Assembly had a different funding scheme. AB 583 passed the Senate 21-18. It needed 21 votes in order to pass.