Unity08 has completely revamped its own web page. The address is the same: www.unity08.com. The new page reveals that Unity08 has decided to use the independent procedure, rather than the new party procedure, in California, Alabama and Idaho. In all 3 states, the independent presidential procedures are easier than the new party procedures.
According to this story in the Riverside, California Press-Enterprise, wealthy Congressman Darrell Issa of San Diego County has agreed to pay to get an initiative on the California June 2008 ballot. That initiative would provide that each U.S. House district elect its own elector. The initiative already collected 100,000 signatures in August, then had been abandoned for lack of funding. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for this news. A poll released on October 31 shows that the initiative would lose; see this report.
The Democratic response continues to lack any hint that the Democrats might qualify similiar initiatives in states such as Florida and Ohio. As noted earlier, 17 of the 23 states that have the initiative process are states that voted for George W. Bush in each of the last two presidential elections.
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.
