Micah Sifry has this op-ed in the May 18 Washington Post. It discusses the potential for Bob Barr (assuming he becomes the Libertarian Party nominee) to attract most of the voters who voted for Ron Paul in this year’s Republican primaries.
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The Executive Intelligence Review is the premier voice of the Lyndon LaRouche movement. See this commentary in its May 23 issue, rejoicing over Hillary Clinton’s victory in the West Virginia presidential primary.
Lyndon LaRouche became a Democrat in 1979, the year he dissolved the U.S. Labor Party. He ran in Democratic presidential primaries in all presidential election years, 1980 through 2004.
On May 16, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas vetoed SB 270, the bill for the National Popular Vote Plan. There is no chance his veto can be overridden, since the legislature decided not to return to consider overriding any veto. If the bill had not been vetoed, Vermont would have become the 5th state to approve the plan.
On May 16, the Missouri passed SB 797, the bill to fix the technical glitch in the ballot access procedures for new parties. The existing law says a petition to qualify a new party doesn’t need to list any candidates, except that if the party intends to run for president, the petition needs to list the presidential and vice-presidential candidates and the candidates for presidential elector. SB 797 fixes that problem. The intent of the law (created in 1993) was to let parties qualify before they had chosen any candidates. Thanks to Ken Bush for his persistent attempts over the years to solve this problem.
HB 1310, the bill to move the independent candidate deadline from July to March, failed to pass, and the legislature has now adjourned for the year.
SB 797 is a somewhat modest improvement, but it is the only bill that has passed any state legislature this year, to help minor party and independent candidate ballot access. It would be a grim year indeed that saw no legislative improvements whatsoever.
On May 16, a controversial Republican choice for the Federal Election Commission, Hans von Spakovsky, withdrew his name from consideration for one of the 4 vacant seats on the Federal Election Commission. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
As a result, the U.S. Senate is likely to fill all the vacancies on the FEC by the end of May. The new Commission will almost certainly consist of these individuals:
Democrats: holdover appointee Ellen L. Weintraub; Cynthia L. Bauerly; and Steven T. Walther. Bauerly is from Minnesota and is a former Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Walther is from Nevada.
Republicans: Donald F. McGahn; Caroline C. Hunter; and a third name still to be determined. McGahn formerly represented Tom DeLay in election law court cases. Hunter was an attorney for the Republican National Committee in 2003; she oversaw the Republican lobbying effort to persuade states to relax their deadlines for parties to certify their presidential candidates. The 2004 Republican National Convention was so late in the year, 7 states had to be persuaded to relax their certification deadlines.