Every year, a major libertarian event is held in February in New Hampshire, called the Free State Project New Hampshire Liberty Forum. This year’s event will include Congressman Ron Paul as a speaker. The Forum is in Concord, Feb. 23-25.
Reply
Every year, a major libertarian event is held in February in New Hampshire, called the Free State Project New Hampshire Liberty Forum. This year’s event will include Congressman Ron Paul as a speaker. The Forum is in Concord, Feb. 23-25.
On January 22, New Mexico State Representative Brian K. Moore introduced HB 331. It eliminates the need for qualified minor parties to submit a petition for each person its nominates at its conventions.
New Mexico is the only state that requires a new or minor party to submit one petition to qualify itself…lets that new party nominate by convention…and then expects that new qualified party to submit another petition for each person nominated. The logical equivalent would be a state law requiring a person nominated in a party primary to then submit a petition to get himself or herself on the November ballot. Such a law would be laughed at.
Or consider another analogy: can one imagine a state requiring President Bush to submit a petition to get himself on the November ballot after he has won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s national convention? Yet that is what New Mexico does, to qualified parties that do not nominate by primary.
Canada traditionally holds “premiership” debates between the leaders of four parties, prior to national parliamentary elections. One could consider these the Canadian equivalent of U.S. presidential debates. By tradition, any party that runs candidates for Parliament in a substantial number of Canadian districts, and which has at least one member of Parliament, is included in these debates. Recently, this has meant that the leaders of the Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Quebecois and New Democratic Parties debate.
The Canadian Green Party is pressing to be included in future debates. The Greens ran candidates in all Canadian districts in the last election, but have not yet elected anyone to Parliament. A poll announced on January 22 says that 77% of Canadians want the Greens included, 9% are opposed, and 14% have no opinion. The survey included 1,500 Canadians and was paid for by the Green Party. Note: this item has been amended to take account of information provided by a commenter.
California now has bill in both houses of the legislature, setting up a presidential primary in February. The Senate bill, introduced on January 22 by Senator Ron Calderon (chair of the Senate Elections Committee), is SB 113. Like its companion bill, AB 157, it would leave the primary for other office in June.