On March 18, a registered Green Party member, David Doonan, was elected Mayor of Greenwich (a village in Washington County, New York). The election was partisan. Doonan’s party label was “Open Government Party”. His only opponent was a Republican. The vote was 258 to 93. Doonan is the national web manager for the Green Party.
California State Senator Alan Lowenthal has introduced SB 1322, which deletes some state laws that discriminate against members of the Communist Party. California’s Constitution, Article 20, says that no one may run for either partisan office or non-partisan office, if that person is a member of the Communist Party, or has been within the last 5 years. The Lowenthal bill does not try to repeal that. It does repeal statutes that bar party members from being public school teachers, and statutes that require organizations that want to meet in a public school to sign an affidavit that they are Communist “fronts”.
The bill has a hearing on April 2 in the Senate Education Committee. If SB 1322 passes, it will probably then be possible to repeal various California election laws that also single out Communist Party members. California is one of only six states that has such election laws. The others are Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. None of these laws are enforceable. In 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they violate the First Amendment, in a case called Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb. The decision was unanimous.
In 2005, the North Carolina Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit, alleging that the ballot access laws for new and small parties violate the State Constitution. Later, the Green Party intervened in the case. The case has survived two attempts by the state to dismiss. Finally, the trial starts on May 5. North Carolina requires more signatures to get a new party on the ballot than any other state, except for California. Yet when North Carolina only required 10,000 signatures (between 1929 and 1981), the state never had more than six parties on the ballot. The existing law was passed in 1983. Many attempts to ease it have failed in the state legislature in the past 25 years.
Governor Jim Douglas of Vermont will either sign or veto SB 108 by Monday, April 7. The bill provides that general elections for Congress should use Instant-Runoff Voting. No state legislature had ever before provided for IRV in statewide general elections.
On March 31, Newsweek published this interview with former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. Thanks to Darcy Richardson for the link.
