The Missouri Senate Financial, Government Operations & Elections Committee will hold a hearing February 25 (Monday) at 2 pm, on SB 797. This is the bill that fixes the technical glitch in the state’s petition for new parties. The existing law was written in 1993. It said that a party could circulate a petition to qualify itself, before it has chosen its nominees. Unfortunately, due to a typographical error, the 1993 bill contradicted its own purpose by also saying that the petition must list the party’s presidential candidate and presidential elector candidates. SB 797 fixes that typo.

Sally Soriano, Ralph Nader’s 2008 Campaign Manager, has posted this statement on www.votenader.org: “Ralph told the media today after ‘Meet the Press’ that he will decide within the coming days how he is going to run for President in terms of ballot access. On ‘Meet the Press’ he mentioned the Green Party positively multiple times thus helping put the Green Party out to “Meet the Press’s” five million plus viewers. Ralph also said that he will announce his Vice-Presidential selection sometime in the next week. If people with the Green philosophy want him to seek their nomination, they could show their support by going to and by donating and signing up on the email list. No matter what he decides he will be communicating the Green Party agenda over the coming months.” Thanks to Dean Myerson for this news. The Nader campaign webpage is here.

On February 23, the Ohio Libertarian Party held a statewide nominating convention. The party nominated candidates for presidential elector, four candidates for U.S. House, three for State House, and one for State Senate.

The party will submit a petition to the Secretary of State in the next week, in advance of the Ohio primary set for March 4, and ask to be recognized as a qualified party. The old Ohio petition procedure was declared unconstitutional by the 6th Circuit in September 2006, and the legislature has not passed a new law to replace it. Under a 6th circuit precedent from 1984, called Goldman-Frankie v Austin (a Michigan case), when a state’s ballot access has been declared unconstitutional and the legislature has not passed a new law, state officials must place any party or any candidate on the November ballot if that party or that candidate can show a modicum of support.

The Ohio Secretary of State in 2007 had responded to the gap in the Ohio law by saying she would place any group on the ballot as a party if it submitted 20,114 valid signatures by late November 2007. The Ohio Libertarian Party will try to persuade the Secretary of State to recognize it, even though it did not meet her conditions. If that does not succeed, the party will probably file a new lawsuit, arguing that it has shown a modicum of support and that under the Goldman-Frankie precedent, that is sufficient.