Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chair, predicts in his memoir that the current ideological divide separating conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats leaves a “vast untended center from which a well-financed independent presidential candidate is likely to emerge” in either 2008 or 2012.
Illinois State Senator James Meeks, a Democrat from Chicago, is threatening to organize a new party this year and to be its candidate for Governor. He is angry with the incumbent Democratic Governor, Rod Blagojevich, for promising not to raise sales or income taxes. Although Meeks is a Democrat, he was elected to the State Senate in 2002 as the nominee of the “Honesty and Integrity Party”. Meeks cannot be an independent candidate for Governor this year because the deadline has already passed, although that deadline is under legal attack in a case filed in 2004, now pending in the 7th circuit.
On March 7, the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn dismissed a lawsuit brought by Lenora Fulani and her allies, over whether the state Independence Party had a right to dissolve three county organizations of the party. Judge Joseph Levine ruled that the lawsuit has procedural flaws, and dismissed it without prejudice, so that it can be refiled under different procedures. The three counties are Brooklyn (Kings), Queens and Bronx, where Fulani and her allies were in charge.
On March 3, a Washington State Superior Court Judge ruled against Ruth Bennett in her case involving televised debates. Bennett ran for Governor in 2004 as a Libertarian. She has asked for a rehearing. Bennett v Belo Corp., 05-2-27309-7 Seattle.
On March 8, the California Supreme Court heard arguments in Californians for an Open Primary v McPherson. The issue is whether Prop. 60 (passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2004) is validly part of the California Constitution. The legislature put it on the ballot. It says that political parties have a right to have the person who receives the most votes in their primary, placed on the November ballot. The problem is that the legislature put it on the ballot with an unrelated subject, providing that if the state sells surplus property, the proceeds should be used to reduce state debt. Before the November 2004 election, the State Court of Appeals cut the proposal into two ballot questions, one on political party rights, and one on the sale of surplus property.
The attorney for foes of Prop. 60 asked the Court to invalidate it. The State Constitution does not require that legislative constitutional amendments only deal with a single subject. But the Constitution does require the legislature to write a separate ballot measure for every section of the Constitution that is being amended, a provision that has been ignored for decades.
At the hearing, most members of the California Supreme Court seemed inclined to disagree with the State Court of Appeals. However, it is far from clear that the California Supreme Court will invalidate Prop. 60, even if the Supreme Court finds that it was a mistake to have put it on the ballot in the first place.
