On August 14, Tony Snow, press secretary to President George W. Bush, said that the president will not endorse Alan Schlesinger for U.S. Senate in Connecticut. Schlesinger is the Republican Party nominee for U.S. Senate. Presumably the President does not wish to seem to be calling for a vote against Senator Joseph Lieberman.
On August 14, Tony Snow, press secretary to President George W. Bush, said that the president will not endorse Alan Schlesinger for U.S. Senate in Connecticut. Schlesinger is the Republican Party nominee for U.S. Senate. Presumably the President does not wish to seem to be calling for a vote against Senator Joseph Lieberman.
Florida has closed primaries in general. But Florida has a blanket primary, for races in which only members of one party are running for that particular office. In other words, if a state legislative race has three Republicans in the primary, and there are no other candidates for that seat in any other party’s primary nor in the general election, then all voters (not just registered Republicans) get to vote in the primary for that one office.
Florida has many such races. Over half of this year’s legislative elections fit this pattern.
On August 9, a group of five Sarasota Democratic voters filed a lawsuit to expand the use of Florida’s blanket primary. They want to vote in the Republican primary for a particular County Commission race, because no Democrats are running, and no minor party or independent candidates are running, so the race will effectively be settled in the Republican primary. The reason this particular race is not open to all voters, however, is because someone filed to be a write-in candidate in the general election. The voters who filed the lawsuit say the race should be open because the write-in candidate has no hope of being elected.
However, two days after filing the lawsuit, all the plaintiffs dropped the case.
Carole Strayhorn, one of the independent Texas gubernatorial candidates, appeared at many of the scheduled hearings on the “Texas Corridor” plan, to voice her opposition to the “Corridor”. These hearings always draw overflow crowds of opponents, so the tactic seems useful for her. The “Corridor” is being promoted by Governor Rick Perry. It is a combination 10-lane freeway plus rail corridor, running north-south through Texas, intended to make it easier and cheaper for goods to pass to and from Mexico and Canada.
The Green Party has been told that it submitted enough valid signatures to qualify in Nebraska this year. However, the Secretary of State is equivocating on whether he will place the party’s candidates for Secretary of State and State Auditor on the ballot. The question will probably be resolved on August 14.
Nebraska law permits a party to be qualified in just a single congressional district, or a single county. Nebraska has 3 U.S. House districts. During 2005 and 2006, the Green Party successfully completed a petition in each one of the state’s 3 U.S. House districts. Since the party is now a qualified party in all three districts, and those three districts comprise the entire state, it seems obvious to most neutral observers that the party is qualified statewide.
In 2004, the Green Party qualified with three separate U.S. House district petitions, and the Secretary of State acknowledged that the party was then qualified statewide. However, this year, the same Secretary of State is not so sure that the party is qualified for statewide office. This is peculiar, since he recognized the Constitution Party (called the Nebraska Party in that state) for the 2006 election, based on the party’s vote totals in two Public Service Commission races in 2004. Public Service Commissioners are elected from districts; they are not statewide offices.
