On September 4, Michigan’s Governor signed SB 624, which moves the Michigan presidential primary to January 15. The Republican Party of Michigan says it will use this primary, even though national party rules will penalize the state party by refusing to seat half its delegates to the national convention.

It is still not clear what the Michigan Democratic Party will do. The party will lose all its delegates if it chooses them in the primary. The party is free to ignore the primary and use caucuses in February, if it wishes to avoid any loss of delegates. It is true that on August 31, the Michigan Democratic Party resolved to use its primary, but the party might change its mind.

On October 12, a New Hampshire lower state court will hold a hearing on the constitutionality of a state law, passed this year, that lets the qualified parties have the statewide list of registered voters for very little money, but denies it to all others. In New Hampshire, only the Democratic and Republican Parties are qualified parties. The case is New Hampshire Libertarian Party v Gardner, 2007-e-327, Merrimack Co. Superior Court.

In 1970 the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a lower court decision, saying that if states provide the list of registered voters to the qualified parties, they must also provide it to unqualified parties that are petitioning to get their nominees on the ballot. That case was Socialist Workers Party v Rockefeller. Given that precedent, it should be difficult for the New Hampshire law to be upheld.

During the last week in August, Ron Paul responded to Larry Reinsch’s question about whether, if he were the Republican nominee, he would participate in inclusive general election debates. Paul said, “Absolutely! You know, I’ve been there…I’ve done it…I know all the handicaps. Isn’t it tragic that we pretend we’re going to spread democracy overseas, and at the same time we’re exclusionary over here…Not just the third parties! Have you heard of a few efforts to try to exclude (in the primary season)? They already have! They don’t want to hear this message, because they don’t have answers…And I think this is what we need. Today when they asked me about what kind of change did I think should be done in the Executive Branch, and my answer is openness, transparency…Our Constitution was never designed for secrecy in government, it was designed to protect your privacy! Now just think of the attack on our privacy today…and so we want, we need openness in government, we need freedom of choice, we need free entry, we need these debates…and we shouldn’t have laws that keep people from voting for parties other than the Democrats and Republicans, and to keep anybody with an alternative view either out of the debates, or off the ballot! So Yes, the answer’s Yes.”

UPDATE: Thanks to Belinda Lawler for doing the difficult work of transcribing all these presidential candidate responses to the debate question.