The Houston, Texas mayoral race is on November 6, 2007. It is non-partisan. There are 3 candidates on the ballot: incumbent Bill White, Socialist Workers Party member Amanda Ulman, and professional wrestling promoter Outlaw Josey Wales IV. The Houston Chronicle ran this story on October 28 about the race. The Mayor has raised over $2,000,000 for his re-election fight. The story hints that he really raised it in case he runs for a bigger office in the future.
The Rhode Island legislature had adjourned for the year in June. However, on October 30, they came back for a one-day session, to consider whether they wished to override any gubernatorial vetoes. In a surprise move, the legislature also used its one-day session to pass S1152, which moves the presidential primary from March to February. The bill passed both houses, but the vote in the House was 38-25, and some House members are asking the Governor to veto that bill. Thanks to Franco Mattei for this.
On October 30, Ralph Nader, Peter Camejo, and six voters who wanted to vote for Nader in 2004, filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee. The lawsuit, Nader v Democratic National Committee, 2007ca-7245B, was filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court. The complaint is 70 pages long. It details the national Democratic Party’s extensive support for challenges to Nader’s ballot positions, in states in which elections officials had accepted Nader’s petitions and placed him on the ballot. The complaint goes into great detail, including a coordinated effort to sabotage individual petition sheets in Oregon (anti-Nader activists were instructed to sign a petition sheet in the space reserved for the circulator, and then to line it out, which had the effect of ruining all the signatures already on that sheet). The complaint also talks about harassment of Nader circulators in Ohio and Oregon. The complaint also deals with incidents in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial, in a claim for monetary damages.
On October 29, a Florida state court ruled that a declared write-in candidate is just as much a candidate as someone who is listed on the ballot. Florida’s Constitution says that when the only candidates running for a partisan office are from the same party, and the winner of the primary will have no opposition whatsoever in the general election, then all voters (not just members of that party) may vote in that party’s primary for that particular office.
Since Florida’s major parties don’t like members of other parties voting in their primaries, they frequently recruit someone to file as a declared write-in candidate in the general election for that office. That method, described as a “loophole”, means that the special Constitutional provision doesn’t apply, since the winner of the primary will still have opposition in the general election from the write-in candidate.
In 2006, a lawsuit had been filed by a Florida voter, arguing that write-in candidates in general elections are so weak and insubstantial that they should be deemed not to exist. The case is Jacobson v Martin, Lake Co. Circuit Court, 2006-ca-1160. But the judge ruled that a write-in candidate is “opposition”, and said that a write-in candidate should not be treated as non-existent. And, in support of his conclusion, it should be noted that write-in candidates have been elected to state legislatures at general elections in 1989 (Virginia), 1990 (Rhode Island), 1994 (Kansas), 1998 (Tennessee), and 2006 (Massachusetts). Write-in candidates frequently win local office.
U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the ability of the National Democratic Party to strip the Florida Democratic Party of its delegates to the national convention, will ask the U.S. District Court to expedite his lawsuit. The case is pending in the Northern District of Florida, and is called Nelson v Dean, no. 4:07-cv-427. Nelson’s request will be filed on October 31. Thanks to Professor Franco Mattei for this news.
