On August 8, Tom DeLay announced that he is withdrawing his name from the Texas general election ballot, for U.S. House, 22nd district. It is likely that the Texas Republican Party will now launch a write-in candidate. The only names appearing on the ballot will be a Democrat and a Libertarian.

DeLay’s statement said, “Voters should be concerned. While judges are denying Texas voters a fair choice this Fall, the courts allowed the Democrat Party in New Jersey to withdraw Robert Torricelli and substitute Frank Lautenberg in a similar case just weeks before the 2002 U.S. Senate election.”

The statement is misleading. New Jersey law permitted candidates to withdraw, and permitted parties to substitute a new nominee. The only ambiguity in the New Jersey law was whether the deadline for doing that was mandatory or not. The New Jersey Supreme Court said that the deadline was not mandatory.

In the recent DeLay case, the Texas law is different. It permits withdrawal. But it does not permit the candidate’s party to substitute a new nominee, unless the withdrawn candidate was ineligible. The federal courts in Texas correctly determined that DeLay was not ineligible. The New Jersey decision does not conflict with the Texas decision.

It would be refreshing if Tom DeLay would advocate that the Texas legislature revise the law to give parties more flexibility.

Between May 1 and August 7, Democratic registration in Connecticut increased by 28,886 voters. There were 14,506 voters who changed from “independent” to “Democratic”, plus 14,380 newly registered voters who registered as Democrats. That’s an increase of almost 5% in the number of Democrats, motivated by the August 8 primary contest for U.S. Senate.

on August 7, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to assist the Texas Republican Party, in its lawsuit to let Congressman Tom DeLay resign and be replaced by a new Republican nominee. Since the U.S. Supreme Court is not sitting during the summer, emergency requests go to a single justice. Justice Scalia is the Justice assigned to the 5th circuit for such emergency requests.