On July 10, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed SB 1038. It removes all limits on how much money an individual may contribution to a candidate for state office. The bill also says that if anyone gives $5,000 or more, that contribution must be reported within 48 hours. Thanks to Roy Lieberman for this news.
Indiana State Senator John Waterman, a Republican, had been trying to get on the ballot for Governor, under the label “Taxpayers Party”. The deadline was June 30 and he needed 32,742 valid signatures. He has now said that he only collected about 3,000 signatures.
Waterman will continue to serve in the Indiana Senate. He was first elected in 1994 and he is not running for re-election now, since he is in the middle of his current four-year term. It is conceivable that he might be interested in introducing a bill next year to ease the petition requirement. No statewide minor party or independent petition has succeeded in Indiana since 2000. Indiana is one of five states in which Ralph Nader has never appeared on the ballot, and Nader is not trying in Indiana this year. Thanks to Ed Feigenbaum for the news.
The Green Party national convention in Chicago is not getting much press from the large newspapers so far, although that will change on Saturday, July 12, when the party votes for president. The best coverage for July 11 seems to be in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. See it here. The focus of the story is on Rosa Clemente, the vice-presidential choice put forward by Cynthia McKinney. UPDATE: for more information on the convention, see www.greenpartywatch.org.
The 10th Circuit will hear Yes on Term Limits v Savage on September 25, Thursday, in Denver. This is the case on whether the U.S. Constitution protects the ability of out-of-staters to circulate petitions. The case is from Oklahoma. The U.S. District Court had upheld the Oklahoma restriction.
The only 10th circuit precedent in this area of the law is favorable. It is Chandler v City of Arvada, 292 F 3d 1236 (2002). It held that a city could not ban circulators from circulating a city initiative, just because those circulators don’t live in that city. The 10th circuit includes Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. That case arose from Colorado.
TIME Magazine has this essay on the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket, which includes interviews with both Bob Barr and Wayne A. Root. Thanks to ThirdPartyWatch for the link.
