Mingle Until Departure

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 17 - The Florida Supreme Court bolstered President Bush's prospects in this swing state on Friday, ruling that Ralph Nader could appear on the November ballot as the Reform Party's presidential candidate.

In a case, and a setting, that instantly evoked memories of the recount battle of 2000, the court rejected Democratic arguments that the Reform Party had not met state requirements for receiving a ballot line. The court's majority concluded that those requirements were vague, but that it would be unfair to punish the Reform Party for the law's weaknesses.
...

Mr. Nader is now on the ballot in 27 states, his campaign said, including several closely contested states like Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire and West Virginia. He could appear on the ballot in more than a dozen other states, pending litigation, they said.

In Colorado, a state district judge, John McMullen, ruled on Friday that Mr. Nader had a right to be on the ballot.

...

Under Florida law, a minor party candidate for president could get on the ballot either by obtaining more than 90,000 signatures or by receiving the nomination of a "national party," a term that was not clearly defined. Mr. Nader received the Reform Party's endorsement at a convention in August, and based on that, sought the ballot line in Florida.

But Democrats challenged his candidacy, asserting that the Reform Party was no longer national in scope, was virtually penniless and that its convention had been staged with hired students purely to qualify for the Florida ballot. Designating it a "national party" would open the door to any group to have a presidential ballot line, they said.

Y'know, I'm all for federalism when it makes sense in a modern functioning capitalist society - e.g., in cases where regional variations are significant enough to warrant significant differences in policy between states - but for national elections, it would be kind of nice if we had a uniform set of standards so shit like this didn't keep happening.

That, and a Supreme Court-mandated shift to nonpartisan commissions for the drawing of Congressional districts (not absurd, or exceedingly far-fetched), and while we're at it, a mandate for states to disburse electoral votes as they do in Nebraska, Maine and (maybe) Colorado (not absurd, but exceedingly far-fetched).

[Colorado sidenote - the linked article contains two pieces of information I was unaware of, previously:

George C. Edwards III, a professor at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and the author of "Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America," said that in the early days of the nation, states divided their electoral votes. As parties developed, the dominant party in each state realized it could collect more votes in a winner-take-all system, Edwards said.

"The basic motivation was greed on the part of the dominant party," he said.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that most Americans favor direct election of the president (most recently, 59 percent in a December 2000 Gallup poll), while surveys of political scientists have supported the Electoral College system. Some nonpartisan voter organizations, including the League of Women Voters, also endorse direct election.

Interesting. So perhaps my idea is not quite as far-fetched as I thought.]

Oh, and a reorganization of the Senate to a national-ballot-elected party-slate chamber with a 1% representation floor (slightly absurd, and ridiculously far-fetched [i.e., Bush will go to Mars himself before this happens], but this is really the best and maybe only way to promote third parties in this country).

perma-linky posted by jkd : 16:17