According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website, the No Labels Party now has 14,502 valid signatures on its petition for party status in 2024. The law requires 13,757. However, in North Carolina, new parties are not certified for the ballot, even if they have enough valid signatures, until the State Board of Elections meets and votes on the petition validity.
The Kansas Senate Committee on Federal & State Affairs has introduced SB 290, which would re-establish a presidential primary in Kansas. The bill would also move the non-presidential primary from August to early May. The presidential primary would be in early May as well. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.
The North Dakota House State and Local Government Committee will hear SCR 4013 on Thursday, March 9, at 10:15 am. This is the proposed constitutional amendment to make it far more difficult for statewide initiatives.
The bill has already passed the Senate. It says no one may circulate an initiative petition who has not resided in the state 120 days before the first signature is collected. It says no circulator may be paid. It increases the number of signatures for constitutional amendments from 4% of the population, to 5%. It says constitutional initiatives must pass twice, first in the primary election and then in the following general election.
An earlier version of the bill said initiatives to change the constitution must pass by 67% of the popular vote, but that has been deleted.
The part of the bill banning any payment of any type to circulators violates the U.S. Supreme Court decision Meyer v Grant (1988), which was a unanimous decision.
On March 2, the Libertarian National Committee filed a federal lawsuit against Robert K. Dean, a Virginia resident who has been active in a group called the Tidewater Libertarian Party. Libertarian National Committee v Dean, e.d., Virginia, 3:23cv-155.
Here is the Complaint. It says the Tidewater Libertarian Party is not part of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. This lawsuit will be interesting, because it is not clear that the Lanham Act, the federal law involving trademarks, applies to political parties.
On March 2, CNN published a statement by Paul Begala which attacks anyone who runs for president outside the two major parties. Begala is a Democratic consultant who worked for Bill Clinton’s campaigns.
On March 3, former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings issued a statement criticizing the Begala opinion. Below is the text of the Rawlings statement. Rawlings is part of No Labels.
“Hi Paul, I’m Mike Rawlings. I served as mayor of Dallas for 8 years. I’m not a Washington insider … I am just out here in middle America and wanted to respond to your CNN article about No Labels. You said we’re going to spoil the election and throw it to Trump.
I can tell you this: I’ll never be part of something like that.
I’m a founding co-chair of No Labels and you and I have two things in common:
We’re both Democrats.
And we both love this country and want the best for it.
But there’re some misconceptions in your article I need to clear up.
No Labels spent the last year working to get on the ballot in states across the country for a simple reason:
The American people want inspiring choices in the 2024 presidential election, and there’s a good chance the major parties won’t give us one.
This is an insurance policy for the country, and it’s one we don’t want to use.
But if the parties keep forcing the American people down a road they don’t want to go, there’s a big opening for an independent. I know you’ve seen the polls that over 60 percent of Americans don’t want a Trump-Biden rematch in 24. And No Labels’ numbers are showing that an independent ticket can win outright and that the ticket pulls evenly from both sides.
If you want to hear a little more about our perspective, or share your own, I have a speaker series here in Dallas and would love to have you down.”
