On September 13, Peter Camejo died. He was 68 and had been living with cancer for several years. Peter Camejo had been the Socialist Workers presidential candidate in 1976. Some years later, he rejected doctrinaire Marxism, but always considered himself a socialist. He was the Green Party candidate for California Governor three times, and he was Ralph Nader’s running mate in 2004. Although he had been born in the United States, his parents were Venezuelan and he grew up in Venezuela. He was on the 1960 Venezuelan Olympics sailing team. He was a successful financial planner and a very good orator.

Camejo was a fierce fighter for fair election laws and practices in the United States, and his death is a painful event. See here for Ralph Nader’s statement.

This year, Cynthia McKinney will be on the ballot in states that cast 70.5% of the national popular vote in 2004. This is the second best ballot access showing in the party’s history. Only 2000 was better for the Green Party.

Of course, the exact state-by-state distribution of the 2008 national popular vote will be slightly different than it was in 2004. Using the 2004 vote totals is the best approximation one can make at this point.

In 2004, presidential nominee David Cobb had been on the ballot before 54.8% of the voters. In 2000, Green nominee Ralph Nader had been on before 90.5% of the voters.

On September 12, at 6:30 p.m., U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane denied injunctive relief to the Constitution Party of Pennsylvania. She said that it is possible the legislature had delegated authority to the State Elections Department to write a regulation setting a filing deadline. She also said that even if the Elections Department did not have authority from the legislature to do that, that setting aside the August 1 deadline would restore the old unconstitutional May deadline, and that would injure the other petitioning groups this year. The case is Baldwin v Cortes, 1:08cv-1626.

This lawsuit will have been beneficial, despite this disappointing outcome. Since the case only denied injunctive relief, not declaratory relief, it is still alive. It is very likely that regardless of what happens next in the lawsuit, the legislature will now understand how important it is to pass a bill setting a constitutional deadline. As noted in earlier posts on this matter, the old deadline was invalidated by two federal courts in 1984, and the legislature has ignored those 1984 decisions and has never replaced the old May deadline.