On September 18, the U.S. Senate was unable to vote on S1257 due to a filibuster. A motion to stop the filibuster received 57 votes, but it needed 60 to succeed. S1257 would have expanded the U.S. House from 435 members to 437, and given the District of Columbia a seat, and another seat for Utah. If the bill had passed, the electoral college would have gone from 538 members to 539 (with Utah getting that extra electoral college vote). That would have eased the danger that there might be a tie in the Electoral College in the future. The danger of a tie vote in the Electoral College was largely forgotten in today’s Senate debate.

The 2008 set of national presidential nominating conventions (of the parties whose nominee could theoretically be elected) happens to work out on a schedule of one convention per month.

The Constitution Party meets April 22-27 in Kansas City.
The Libertarian Party meets May 23-26 in Denver.
Unity08 will choose its nominee in June (dates not set yet).
The Green Party meets July 10-13 in Chicago.
The Democratic Party meets August 25-28 in Denver.
The Republican Party meets Sept. 1-4 in Twin Cities, Minnesota

On September 17, the faction of the national Reform Party that lost the earlier jury trial in Tallahassee (the lawsuit called Reform Party of the USA v O’Hara) filed a motion for a new trial. The motion contains an affidavit of Lee Dilworth, saying he did not participate in the 2005 vote of the national executive committee that rescinded the call to the Tampa national convention. Since 6 votes were needed for a quorum, and since only 6 members of the national executive committee (including Dilworth) are recorded as having voted, if the recent Dilworth affidavit is accurate, the party records are in error and the Tampa convention wasn’t properly cancelled. The Tampa convention voted to name Charles Foster as national chair.

Any reporting done about internal Reform Party conflicts is very difficult. Passions run high on all sides. The author of this web page is no expert on internal Reform Party disputes and is not motivated to become an expert on that subject.