California Republican Initiative on Electoral College Would Complicate Independent Candidate Ballot Access

Posted on by November 4, 2007
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The Republican-backed initiative to provide that each California US House district would elect its own presidential elector, if passed in June 2008, would make it somewhat more complicated for an independent presidential candidate to get on the California ballot in November 2008. Current law requires an independent presidential candidate petition to list the names and addresses of 55 candidates for presidential elector. However, current law does not have a residence requirement for candidates for presidential elector, except that the electors must be California residents.

The initiative says that candidates for presidential elector must each live in the district that he or she hopes to represent. Therefore, an independent candidate for president would have the task of lining up a slate of candidates for presidential elector, one per US House district. This work must be done before the petitions are printed. California requires 158,372 valid signatures, to be obtained between April 2008 and August 8, 2008.

Political parties on the California ballot would also need to submit a list of presidential elector candidates, in accordance with the residency requirement imposed by the initiative, if the initiative gets on the ballot in June 2008 and passes. If passed, it would take effect as soon as the votes had been counted in June.

Florida Presidential Primary Candidates

Posted on by November 4, 2007
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On November 1, the Florida presidential primary ballot candidates’ list was released. The list is the same as the Georgia list. The method of choosing candidates in both states is the same; the list is drawn up by the legislative leaders of that major party and the party state chair.

The 8 Democrats are Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama and Richardson. The 9 Republicans are Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, McCain, Paul, Romney, Tancredo and Thompson.

Alan Keyes is now in a strong position to be in future Republican presidential debates, since he has been listed in both Florida and Georgia by party leaders.

Amy Goodman Radio Show Airs Segment on Nader Lawsuit Against Democratic National Committee

Posted on by November 3, 2007
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On October 31, Amy Goodman, hostess of the “Democracy Now” radio show, interviewed Carl Mayer about the lawsuit Ralph Nader filed against the Democratic National Committee last month. Here is the transcript. Carl Mayer is one of the attorneys for the new lawsuit. The radio show tried to persuade someone from the Democratic National Committee to appear to give the party’s side, but was unsuccessful.

Nader filed a companion lawsuit in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 1. It is called Nader v McAuliffe, no. 07-cv-1101. Nader filed the federal lawsuit as a backup to his lawsuit in the District of Columbia, just in case there are jurisdiction problems with the D.C. filing. Terry McAuliffe, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, lives in Virginia.

Michigan Bill to Abolish Presidential Primary Makes No Headway So Far

Posted on by November 3, 2007
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The bill in the Michigan legislature to abolish the 2008 presidential primary, HB 5353, was introduced 8 days ago, and so far it has not made any headway. If the bill were to pass, Michigan Democrats would try to schedule a presidential caucus for the same day as the New Hampshire presidential primary.

New Hampshire hasn’t set the date for its presidential primary, and will not do so, until Michigan’s actions are known. Now that filing has closed for the New Hampshire primary, it may be presumed that New Hampshire has already started printing the ballots. That job will probably be done by November 12. Federal law requires that absentee ballots be made available 30 days before election day itself.