The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Rust v Morales, 23-1369, at its September 30 conference.  This is the Indiana case over how candidates get on a primary ballot.  The law lets the state exclude candidates who did not vote in the last primary held for that party.  The plaintiff had wanted to run as a Republican for U.S. Senate this year, but he was excluded.

Also on September 30, the Court will also consider whether to hear Bell v Raffensperger, 23-7684.  This is the Georgia case filed by an independent candidate for the legislature, Andrew W. Bell.  It concerns the lack of due process when Georgia checks petition signatures.

It seems likely Democrats will have a presumptive vice-presidential nominee by August 7.  That is historically rather late in the process, but not too unusual.

The ticket that took the longest to be presumptively known, in history, was the Republican ticket in 2008.  John McCain didn’t express his preference for a v-p, Sarah Palin, until August 29.

Second-latest was the Democratic ticket of 2008, when Barack Obama didn’t announce Joe Biden until August 23.

CNN RULES WOULD HAVE BARRED EVERY INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR LAST 112 YEARS

On May 15, CNN announced rules for getting into its June 27 presidential debate:  (1) the candidate must have been at 15% or above in four national polls; and (2) the candidate must certified for the ballot in states with at least 270 electoral votes, by June 20.

The second rule, if it had been in effect over the last 112 years, would have barred every independent presidential candidate, and every presidential nominee of a new party, no matter how much popular support the candidate had enjoyed.

1912:  Theodore Roosevelt, the nominee of the new Progressive Party, was not nominated by his new party until August 5.  Furthermore, the Progressive Party did not even exist until after Roosevelt was defeated at the Republican convention on June 18-22.

Continue reading →