The Freedom Socialist Party has never run a presidential candidate, nor even a candidate for statewide office, in any state. Instead, it has limited its electoral campaigns to state legislative races, and races for local office, in Washington, Oregon, California, and New York.

This year, however, the Freedom Socialist Party is actively helping the Socialist Party place Brian Moore on the Washington ballot. Moore is the Socialist Party’s presidential nominee. This will probably guarantee Moore a spot on the ballot in Washington. The Socialist Party last placed a presidential nominee on the Washington ballot in 2000, when only 200 supporters were needed. The requirement since 2004 has been 1,000 supporters.

Public officials in Louisiana have teamed up with Google and YouTube to promote a presidential debate in New Orleans on September 18. However, neither Senator McCain, nor Senator Obama, has said yet whether he will accept the invitation.

Louisiana officials were angry with the Commission on Presidential Debates, when the Commission announced on November 19, 2007, that the Commission would not hold any of its debates in New Orleans. The CPD presidential debates will be in Oxford, Mississippi on September 26, Nashville, Tennessee on October 7, and Hempstead, New York on October 15. The back-up sites are Danville, Kentucky, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

See the webpage for the proposed New Orleans debate. That site says that presidential candidates must be at 10% in polls, in order to be included. The webpage features a YouTube of various officials. First is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who says, “I want to invite all our presidential candidates.” Then comes New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who says the proposed New Orleans debate will be “more democratic than ever before.” Then Chad Hurley of YouTube speaks, saying “We have a chance to open it up even more.” Finally, David Drummond of Google speaks, saying “Voters will have an opportunity to learn about the candidates.”

Since the poll requirement for the New Orleans debate is 10%, whereas the Commission on Presidential Debates requirement is 15%, the New Orleans debate sponsors are marginally closer to an inclusive general election debate than the CPD. Nevertheless, their rhetoric is out of sync with their criteria. As most readers of this site already know, a debate which invited all candidates who could theoretically win the election would involve only six presidential candidates, almost surely Baldwin, Barr, McCain, McKinney, Nader and Obama. Thanks to Ross Dreyer for the link to the New Orleans debate organization.

Cody Quirk, one of the editors of Third Party Watch, has done some hard work analyzing the rules for American Independent Party structure. See here. Of course, this subject is timely because of the recent dispute in the California AIP, over whom the proper state officers are, whom the presidential candidate should be, and which state convention (Los Angeles at the end of June, or Sacramento on July 5-6) is valid.

The California legislature passed a bill in 1975, setting out the rules by which the American Independent Party, and also the Peace & Freedom Party, should organize themselves. Back then, state legislators in some states, including California, thought it was the duty of government to place party organization rules in the election laws.

In 1984, some county units of the Democratic and Republican Parties of California, and the state Libertarian Party, brought a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that the First Amendment protects the right of political parties to decide on their own organization and rules, without government involvement. The parties won that lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989; the decision is Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee.

Neverthless, the bills passed by the California legislature in 1975, setting forth internal party rules for PFP and AIP, had been written by leaders of those two parties. The California election laws governing those parties’ rules are still in the Election Code. Both parties, in their own Bylaws, do acknowledge that the parties accept those parts of the Election Code as their legitimate rules. There are no California election code sections that apply specifically to the Green Party, or the Libertarian Party. When the Libertarian Party qualified for the ballot in 1980, and when the Green Party qualified for the ballot in 1992, both parties told the Secretary of State that they wish to follow the Peace & Freedom code sections, although since then both parties have made changes.