On June 4, the Florida Secretary of State determined that the America First Party is now a qualified party.
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On May 20, the Maine House passed LD 252, which would have Maine withdraw from the National Popular Vote Pact. But the bill has not been brought up on the Senate floor, and the legislature expects to adjourn on June 18 or 19.
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On June 16, the Texas Libertarian Party filed this reply brief in Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089. This is the lawsuit over Texas filing fees for candidates. The law says fees paid by parties that nominate by primary (i.e., Republican and Democratic) are given to those parties. But fees paid by parties that nominate by convention go into the state treasury.
The brief accuses the state of hypocrisy, and has some fiery language.
]]>The No Labels national leadership is considering whether to endorse and provide campaign support for Mike Duggan, an independent candidate for Michigan Governor who is also Mayor of Detroit. It is also considering similar help to Jason Pizzo, an independent candidate for Governor of Florida.
There have been No Labels nominees for public office in a few states, but the national leadership of No Labels has never supported those candidates.
The Ninth Circuit still hasn’t issued its opinion in No Labels v Fontes, 24-563. The issue in that case is whether No Labels, which is a qualified party in Arizona, has a constitutional right to block unwanted candidates in its primary.
]]>On June 6, the Virginia Elections office filed this brief in Lynchburg v Republican City Committee v Virginia Department of Elections, w.d., 6:25cv-29. The party claims that a new law in practice makes it impossible for it to nominate by convention. The state’s brief says the party can use a convention but it must have procedures for various kinds of voters who can’t participate in person.
]]>Nate Cohn, the New York Times’ chief political analyst, writes in “The Tilt” (part of the Times) that conditions possibly are right for the emergence of a new, popular political party.
]]>Jon Kiper will run for New Hampshire Governor as an independent in 2026. See this story. He is a former Democrat who had run for Governor in the 2024 Democratic primary and placed third.
]]>New York is one of the few states that has a procedure for a party to expel members. Current law lets a party do that if it has a county committee in the affected county. On June 11, the State Senate passed S7111. It says that if a party wants to expel a member, but doesn’t have a county committee in the relevant county, then the state committee can handle the expulsion.
The bill was introduced at the request of the Working Families Party, which is hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2024 in the 17th U.S. House district. Individuals sympathetic to the Republican Party organized a group of similar-minded individuals to enroll in the Working Families Party, so that these newcomers outnumbered the ordinary enrolled members of the Working Families Party. They then used their voting power in the WFP primary to nominate someone other than the Democratic nominee. The leadership of the WFP couldn’t do anything about this, because the party doesn’t have county committees. The WFP would have preferred to nominate the Democratic nominee in that district, as the party did in all the other US House districts in which it had a candidate.
The vote in the State Senate was 37-22. Now the bill goes to the Assembly.
]]>On June 12, proponents of several Oklahoma initiatives asked the State Supreme Court to strike down the recent restrictions on the initiative process. McVay v Cockroft, 123,179. See this story.
]]>Independent New York City mayoral candidate Jim Walden wanted to have “Independence” as his ballot label in the November 2025 election. On May 2 the Second Circuit ruled against him in a one-sentence order, and said it would explain later. But it still hasn’t issued its explanation. Walden v Kosinski, 25-764.
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