This story says the rally concerning foreign policy in Washington, D.C., on February 19, attracted between 1,000 and 3,000 attendees. Tow former minor party presidential nominees, Ron Paul and Jill Stein, were among the speakers.
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Arkansas SB 277 has been introduced. It has four Senate sponsors and 54 House sponsors, and is backed by the Secretary of State. It lowers the number of signatures for a new or previously unqualified party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to exactly 10,000 signatures. It moves the petition deadline to three weeks before the primary. In presidential years the Arkansas primary is in March; in midterm years it is in May.
It permits the petition to circulate starting January 1 of any odd year, which gives proponents approximately fourteen months. The old law required the petition to be completed in three months.
This bill exists because the old law was held unconstitutional last year.
On February 7, Virginia House Bill 1414 died in the House Privileges & Elections Committee. It would have provided for party labels on general election ballots for candidates for partisan local office. Virginia is unique in leaving party labels off general election ballots for local partisan elections. Parties have nominees but that information is kept off the ballot.
Before 2000, Virginia even banned party labels for congressional and state office elections.
On February 10, the Montana Senate State Administration Committee defeated SB 200. It would have let candidates for non-partisan office, such as school board and judicial elections, put a party label next to their name on the ballot.
Connecticut Representative Devin Carney (R-Old Saybrook) has introduced HB 5694, a bill for a top-two system. The language of the bill hasn’t been drafted yet, but this description of the bill says it is to be similar to the California system.