According to this NBC news story, the Michigan legislature is likely to pass a bill next week setting the major party presidential primaries on January 15.
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The Federal Election Commission has published Federal Elections 2006, the compilation of election returns for both houses of Congress from the 2006 election. The book can be seen on-line here. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news. The FEC has been publishing such election returns books ever since 1980 or possibly a few years earlier.
On August 16, leaders of the California Democratic Party announced a new organization to fight a proposed ballot initiative that would let each U.S. House district elect its own presidential elector in California. The new organization is headed by the state’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, the Mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Democratic state legislative leaders. See its webpage at www.fairelectionreform.com. An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on August 16 is critical of the proposed initiative. The Wall Street Journal supports the existing electoral college system, and the op-ed says that the proposed Republican initiative will merely play into the hands of the National Popular Vote Plan. Thanks to Jack Dean for this news.
As noted in an earlier post, on August 13, a state court in New Hampshire refused to enjoin the state from releasing the statewide list of New Hampshire voters to the Democratic and Republican Parties and no other organizations. The ACLU had sued on behalf of the Libertarian Party. The New Hampshire Democratic Party has now sold the list for $65,000 each, to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson. This results in income of $325,000 to the state party.
In 1970 the U.S. Supreme Court had summarily affirmed a 3-judge district decision from New York, in Socialist Workers Party v Rockefeller. That decision had said that if a state gives a free list of the registered voters to the qualified parties, it must give the list to unqualified parties on the same terms. The New Hampshire state court in Merrimack County seems oblivious to this precedent, which should be binding everywhere in the nation.
On August 10, the Mississippi Republican Party formally intervened in the lawsuit that had been filed by the Mississippi Democratic Party to gain a closed Democratic primary. The case is now pending in the 5th circuit. The US District Court Judge had ruled that Democrats may close their primary if they wish, but that the state must start requiring photo-ID for voters at primaries. The Republican intervenors are simply saying that the Republican Party is pleased with current Mississippi election law, and that Republicans don’t wish to have any requirement that voters must show photo-ID to vote in Repubilcan primaries.