On September 19, the U.S. Senate Rules Committee will hold a hearing on S1257, the bill to tell the states and the major parties when to hold their presidential primaries and caucuses. The bill only applies to parties that won any electoral votes in the preceding presidential election. It lets Iowa and New Hampshire go first, in perpetuity. The other 48 states would be grouped into 4 regions, and a random procedure would choose which region holds primaries and caucuses in March, which in April, which in May, and which in June.

In 2004, Ralph Nader submitted signatures to be an independent presidential candidate in Oregon. Although county elections administrators said he had enough valid signatures, Oregon’s Democratic Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury, said he didn’t. Although it was the county elections officials’ job to check signatures, Bradbury overrode their work by disqualifying all petition sheets if the circulator had only put his or her own initials, instead of a full signature; also he disqualified other sheets because they weren’t numbered in sequence.

Notwithstanding that Nader did not appear on the ballot, Democratic Party leaders in the Oregon legislature were so incensed that he had even tried, they passed a law in 2005 making it illegal for people to both sign an independent candidate’s petition and vote in the primary. A lawsuit against that law is currently pending in the 9th circuit.

In response to the Oregon law of 2005, Nader supporters in 2006 created the Independent Party of Oregon. The 2005 law had not affected new parties; the Independent Party was able to qualify in 2006 and not worry about whether its signers were primary voters or not. However, in order for the Independent Party of Oregon to maintain its status after 2008, it needs to poll at least 1% for any statewide race in 2008. The party has now recruited a candidate for U.S. Senate. He is John Frohnmayer. He was President George H. W. Bush’s head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and he was a Republican until 2005. He believes that our current president should be impeached for his 1,100 “signing statements” (issued when he signs bills). A poll released in August 2007 shows that Frohnmayer was at 7%, with 10% of registered Democrats saying they will vote for him, but only 5% of registered Republicans saying they support him.

An editorial in the state’s largest newspaper points out that if Oregon Democrats are unhappy to have John Frohnmayer in the race, perhaps they should not have passed the 2005 ballot access restriction, since that restriction caused the Independent Party of Oregon to come into existence.

Frohnmayer’s website is www.ivotejohn.com.