Filing closed for the Idaho primaries on March 21. The state has 4 qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Constitution.

The Republican presidential primary will list Ron Paul and John McCain. The Democratic presidential primary will list Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Keith Russell Judd of Beaumont, Texas. Clinton and Obama were listed automatically because they are discussed in the news media. Judd is not discussed in the media, so he got on by paying a filing fee of $1,000.

For non-presidential office, the Libertarian Party has a candidate for U.S. Senate, and four state legislative candidates. The Constitution Party has two state legislative candidates. The Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Kent Marmon, had been a Caldwell City Council member in the 1980’s. Thanks to Politics1 for that information.

As noted in a blog post below, on March 20, a U.S. District Court in Connecticut said that the lawsuit Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield must go to trial. However, the March 20 order is not just a simple procedural matter; it is a 49-page careful analysis of whether states can substantially discriminate against non-Democrats and non-Republicans, in the matter of public funding. Here is the decision. The substantive parts start on page 29.

Noteworthy quotes are, “The Connecticut General Assembly had no obligation to pass a law that levels the playing field, but the legislature is not free to pass a law that further slants the playing field.” Also, “The size of the 10%-15%-20% (petition) thresholds is not as problematic as the fact that thresholds (i.e., petitions) apply only to minor party candidates in the first instance. Plaintiffs argue that it is unfair to impose additional qualifying requirements only on minor party candidates because, in one-party-dominant districts, the minor party candidate’s chances to win the general election as are good as, or better than, the token (or nonexistent) major party candidate, yet the token major party candidate is presumptively entitled to the full complement of public funds, whereas the minor party candidate must show additional ‘modicums of support.’ That argument is persuasive. Indeed, in those districts, major party candidates have proven to be just as capable of running hopeless candidacies, or no candidacies at all, as minor party candidates. Defendants have suggested no good reason why the legislature sought to protect the public fisc from hopeless minor party candidacies, on the one hand, while spending significant sums of money on hopeless major party candidacies, on the other.”

On March 19, the Vermont Senate passed S270, the National Popular Vote Plan bill.

The Hawaii bill for the National Popular Vote Plan was to have received a key vote in the House on March 20, but that has been postponed until March 25. That bill is SB 2898, which has already passed the Senate.