Current Roster of Republican Candidates Support Open Primaries

OPEN PRIMARIES

• GOP panel weighs party registration plan (By: Associated Press, Chattanooga Times Free Press) The executive committee of the state Republican Party is expected to consider a proposal Saturday to require party registration to vote in Tennessee primaries.
• Steele Attacked Without Being Named (Wall Street Journal/WASHINGTON WIRE, By Patrick O'Connor) All the candidates present support open primaries – a top priority for conservative activists – and each would seek to punish Republicans who receive help from the committee only to drop out of the GOP primary and run as an independent or, like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, lose the primary and run as an independent. There is even a move under way to punish those candidates under the RNC bylaws.
• Post-Election Poll Shows Deep Rural, Urban Divide In Oregon (Kristian Foden-Vencil, OPB News) In fact, 70 percent said they'd support an open primary system -- that's when all voters get a ballot containing the names of all candidates. And they could vote for who ever they want -- regardless of party affiliation.
• South Carolina: IndependentVoting.org May Join State Independents to Intervene on Behalf of Existing Open Primary (The Hankster) According to its attorney Harry Kresky, Independentvoting.org is exploring the possibility of joining with South Carolina independents, third party activists and progressives to intervene in open primary litigation in South Carolina.

2012

• Will GOP Hold Independents in 2012? (John Zogby, Forbes/Data Place) Among the worst thing Republicans can do is be perceived as on a witch hunt against the President. Overt partisan investigations will be seen as just that, and more importantly a diversion from solving the nation’s problems.

BLOOMBERG 2012

• NYC mayor: Obama has broken campaign promises (AP) "The president, I think, needs some better advisers," Bloomberg told GQ. "He campaigns, 'I'm gonna do A,' and then he doesn't do it. Now he's pissed off the supporters and the opponents."

KENTUCKY

• Michael Lewis: Kentucky's Chief Independent Organizer in the Hornet's Nest (The Hankster) Exactly 5 weeks before the election, I was out on the campaign trail walking neighborhoods when I got a very unsettling call from my wife.  As she started to explain what we just received in the mail, I couldn’t help myself to the feeling of being kicked in the stomach by a donkey! As it turns out I really was being kicked by a donkey…or a few, really. I was just served a legal summons, filed by attorney Jennifer Moore, former Kentucky Democrat Chairwoman. The plaintiff Greg Reddington is the former senior advisor to Louisville’s current Mayor Jerry Abramson (D) who has been in office for over 20 years.

CALIFORNIA

• Just as the voters wanted: Redistricting reform becoming reality (By Elaine Howle, Capitol Weekly)
• "The conventional wisdom is that the newly created independent redistricting commission will have a major impact on California's existing, hyper-partisan political districts. What do you think?" (Capitol Weekly)

NEW YORK

• Opponents of New Public Schools Chancellor Seek Legal Action (By Richard Nieva, The Brooklyn Ink) In addition to the Freedom Party, groups involved in the protest included the aptly named Deny Waiver Coalition—comprised of public school parents, educators, and community leaders in the city—and the Coalition for Public Education.
• Recount Finds 195,000 Votes Were Missed on Election Night (By SAM ROBERTS, NY Times) The final tally swelled the total vote count to 1,366,881 from 1,145,826 on Nov. 2 in the official certified version. The largest cache of newly found machine ballots was in Queens — about 80,000, or 31 percent, more than were reported on election night. The 195,000 differential does not include an additional 28,442 affidavit ballots cast on paper at the polls on Election Day because of missing registrations or other reasons, and 30,665 absentee and military ballots or scattered write-in votes, all included in the final tally.
• Hearing Set in New York Case Over How to Tally Votes for Two Parties Who are Running the Same Nominee (Ballot Access News) U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff will hold a hearing in Conservative Party of New York and Working Families Party of New York v New York State Board of Elections on Monday, December 6, at 4 p.m.  This is the case that contests the state’s policy on counting votes.
• Crooked lines: Redistricting reformers charge, Albany shrugs (BY NICK RIZZO, Capital New York) “I’d love to see independent redistricting, but I don’t see it happening, at least not this year,” he said. “If you think leaders in the Senate and the Assembly are going to pass this, you need to think again. They want to have that power over their members.”