In November 2022, the Legal Marijuana Now Party nominee for Nebraska Attorney General, Larry Bolinger, polled 30.27% in a two-person race. That was the highest percentage for a statewide Nebraska candidate running outside the two major parties since 1936, when independent George Norris was re-elected to the U.S. Senate with 43.82% of the vote.
On January 20, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled unanimously that if a Vermont town wants to let non-citizens vote in local elections, the State Constitution does not prevent them from doing that. Here is the decision in Ferry v City of Montpelier, 22-AP-125. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the news.
Nebraska Senator Loren Lippincott (R-Central City) has introduced LB 764, which would end the Nebraska tradition of letting each U.S. House district elect its own presidential elector. Similar bills have been introduced many times in the last decade but so far they haven’t passed. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Committees in both houses of the Missouri legislature have already passed bills to make it more difficult for statewide initiatives to get on the ballot, or to require that they not go into effect without more than a majority vote. See this story.
Jesse Walker has this interesting essay titled “How Third Parties Die”, which gives the history of many third parties and notes that they generally fail because of internal dissention.
