Unfortunately, the blog post of May 16, saying that the Missouri legislature had passed SB 797, was mistaken. The bill had passed the Senate, and then on May 14 had passed the House, but the House had added something new to the bill, so it needed to be passed by the Senate again.

On May 16, the Senate concurred in the amendments, so it appeared that the bill had passed entirely. But in Missouri, that wasn’t enough; the Senate not only had to concur in the addition, but it had to pass the bill again as a separate action. Although the bill had no opposition, the legislature went home without doing that final action. Thanks to Barbara Woodruff for pointing out the original error. The bill would have corrected the typographical error in the law that was passed in 1993. Generally a group is free to circulate a petition for recognition in Missouri before it has chosen its nominees. But the glitch means that if the group wants to run a presidential candidate, it must list the presidential candidate on the petition. Fortunately the Secretary of State permits a stand-in presidential candidate, who can be changed later.

Cynthia McKinney now has the support of over 50% of the delegates to the Green Party national convention who have been chosen so far. Although not all state Green Parties have chosen their delegates, most of them have, so it is very likely that she will obtain the nomination. The national convention is July 10-13 in Chicago. This post originally said she had clinched the nomination, but that was not accurate.

Here is an article about the press statement of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, responding to threats against the League by the current Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Last week the League had filed a federal lawsuit, charging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with bargaining with the Pennsylvania legislature over lawsuit outcomes and the pay raise bill for judges. In return, the current Chief Justice had threatened that the League might be subjecting itself to sanctions. The League’s press release charges the Chief Justice with violating the right of citizens to petition their government.

The Pennsylvania League of Women Voters has consistently invited all ballot-qualified candidates for statewide office into candidate debates that it sponsors. It is one of the most friendly state Leagues, relative to minor parties and independent candidates.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has continued to support a system in which minor party and independent candidates who try to get on the ballot, and then fail to submit enough valid signatures, must pay tens of thousands of dollars to pay for the cumbersome judicial process that removes them from the ballot.