On May 29, Anthony Pollina, Vermont Progressive Party state chair, held a press conference to reiterate that he is still running for Governor. There had been speculation that he might bow out of the race and run for Lieutenant Governor instead, since the Democrats recently recruited a candidate for Governor.
1. The Ohio Libertarian Party will file its lawsuit, alleging that it is a qualified party, between June 2 and June 6.
2. The Ohio Secretary of State has decided to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to restore Ohio’s law, making it illegal for anyone to pay initiative circulators on a per-signature basis. The brief will be filed in June.
3. The U.S. District Court in Columbus is about to set a hearing date in Brian Moore v Jennifer Brunner, the challenge to Ohio’s law making it illegal for out-of-staters to circulate an independent candidate petition.
4. The 6th circuit will hear Nader v Blackwell on July 22. This is a lawsuit filed against former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell as an individual, not in his capacity as Secretary of State. The lawsuit charges that Blackwell personally injured Ralph Nader in 2004, when he ruled that anyone could circulate an initiative petition (even though the law forbade it), yet at virtually the same time, he removed Nader from the ballot because he believed that some of Nader’s petitioners were not bona fide Ohio residents.
The Massachusetts Republican Party’s preferred candidate for U.S. Senate this year may have failed to gather the needed 10,000 valid signatures to place his name on the Republican primary ballot. See this story. The candidate is Jim Ogonowski. He is 82 signatures short, except that there may be some additional signatures for him still in the mail to the Secretary of State’s office from a few town clerks.
Massachusetts and Virginia are tied in having the highest number of signatures needed for a candidate (with party organization support) to get on a primary ballot for statewide office. Each state requires 10,000 signatures. In Virginia, any registered voter may sign, and signatures generally aren’t even checked. But in Massachusetts, only registered members of that party, as well as independents, may sign to place a candidate on a primary ballot.
A second Republican in Massachusetts (one who is not favored by the party organization), Jeff Beatty, did get enough signatures, so the party will have a US Senate nominee no matter what happens to the Ogonowski petition.
Anthony Pollina, state chair of the Vermont Progressive Party, will hold a press conference on May 29 (Thursday), to say whether he will continue running for Governor, or whether he will switch to the Lieutenant Governor’s race. He has been running for Governor since late last year. But recently, the Democratic Party came up with a gubernatorial candidate, the Speaker of the Vermont House, Gaye Symington. Democrats are hoping Pollina will switch to the Lieutenant Governor’s race, and are hinting that if he does, they will support him.
On May 27, the Rhode Island Senate passed S.2112 by a vote of 27-10. This is the National Popular Vote Plan bill for presidential elections. The same concept has already been signed into law in Hawaii, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland.
