The Illinois legislature has extended the deadline to act on HB 1685, the National Popular Vote Plan, to November 30. This is the 13th time the legislature has extended the deadline in the last six months. All bills have deadlines to pass, since the legislature is in special session.
The faction of the Reform Party headed by Rodney Martin has set a national convention, December 17-19, 2007, in San Francisco. That convention will decide whether to nominate anyone for president. If the convention decides to nominate someone for president, then a special nominating convention sometime in 2008 will be planned.
The Libertarian Party national committee endorsed HR 3600 on November 2. This is Congressman Ron Paul’s bill to outlaw restrictive ballot access laws for U.S. House elections. The bill sets a ceiling of 1,000 signatures for candidates for the U.S. House. A similar bill has been introduced in 8 previous sessions of Congress. The sponsors have been Congressman John Conyers, former Congressman Tim Penny, and Paul himself.
Filing closes on November 2 for the New Hampshire presidential primaries. 21 Republicans have filed; 23 Democrats have filed. Anyone may appear by filling out a Declaration of Candidacy and paying $1,000. It is conceivable that a few more names will be added, since there is another hour left to file.
For a list of the candidates and contact info for each, see this page from the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s site.
In 2004, there had been 23 presidential candidates on the New Hampshire Democratic primary ballot, and 14 on the New Hampshire Republican ballot.
Long-time Secretary of State Bill Gardner has said in the past that New Hampshire voters are not confused by facing this many names on the ballot.
On November 2, the Georgia Secretary of State announced that these candidates will be on each major party’s presidential primary:
Democratic: Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama, Richardson (8 names)
Republican: Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, McCain, Paul, Romney, Tancredo, Thompson (9 names).
Georgia and Florida are the only two states in which the list of presidential primaries is determined by 3 party officers. The leader of each major party in the State Senate, the leader of each major party in the State House, and the State Party Chair, form a committee and decide which candidates to list. In the past, this system has withstood court challenge from David Duke in both states. Georgia and Florida are the only states in which Lyndon LaRouche was never able to get on a Democratic presidential primary, back in the period starting in 1980 when he always ran in Democratic presidential primaries.
