On June 13, Congress finalized a pay raise for itself, to $168,500. The annual increase is $3,300. Every time Congress raises its own pay, filing fees also rise in many states. Many states set the filing fee at 1%, or 2%, of the annual salary.
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On June 15, the Idaho Republican Party state convention voted to work for a closed primary for Idaho. The vote was 221-66. Idaho has had primary elections since 1909, and they have always been open (i.e., any voter showing up at the polls on primary day has been free to choose any party’s primary ballot).
On June 14, a collection of Albert Einstein’s personal papers were sold at auction. The proceeds, $42,000, were donated to the Working Families Party by the individual who sold them.
On June 16, the Louisiana legislature gave final approval to SB 18, which changes Louisiana congressional elections from “top-two” to a closed primary system. Independent voters would choose which party’s primary ballot to use (although any qualified party could pass a bylaw barring independents from voting in its primary).
The Associated Press writer in Louisiana, when writing articles about SB 18, has consistently and erroneously said that only the Democratic and Republican Parties would have primaries to choose congressional candidates. In reality, five parties will hold primaries (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green and Reform).
The Arizona Libertarian Party has at least two notable candidates this year for Congress. One is Richard Mack, running for U.S. Senate. During the 1990’s he was the elected sheriff of Graham County, Arizona. He won a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court against a newly-enacted federal law that required county sheriffs to offer their services to the federal government regarding gun registration. He then intended to be the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of Utah in 2004, but instead he decided to compete in a TV network show “The American Candidate” (he couldn’t do both, since the TV network prohibited anyone from competing in the show if the person was actually running for public office in the same year).
Running for US House in the 8th district (Tucson) is David F. Nolan, who started the Libertarian Party at a meeting in his home in 1971.