Although the Arizona Reform Party has not been on the ballot statewide since 2000, it continues to run candidates for district office. In 2008 it is running Jack Kretzer for State Senate in the 24th district (Yuma County). The Reform Party did not attempt to qualify as a party in Arizona this year, but Arizona lets candidates who use the independent petition method choose a partisan label, and Kretzer’s label will be “Reform.” See this article.

The Democratic National Committee has agreed to make hotel reservations for the people whom the Florida Democratic Party has chosen as delegates to the national convention in Denver in August. Even though the National Committee doesn’t consider these individuals to be true “Delegates” , the hotel decision shows that many party leaders expect that to change. The Florida Democratic Party finished choosing its superdelegates on April 5. See this article.

Here is a summary of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson’s speech to the Florida Senate on March 27. In the speech, he said he will soon introduce federal legislation, and a proposed constitutional amendment, to do these things: abolish the Electoral College, establish a regional rotating schedule of six presidential primary dates, mandate no-excuse absentee voting for federal elections, mandate a paper trail for all vote-counting systems for federal elections, and provide grants to states for all-mail voting.

It would be valuable for Florida constituents of Senator Nelson to ask him to also include ballot access reform in federal elections. Although ballot access reform has been introduced in the U.S. House ten times, and a bill is pending there currently (HR 3600), no U.S. Senator has ever introduced a bill on ballot access.