The Missouri Senate Committee on Finance, Governmental Organization & Elections, will hold a hearing on HB 1310 on Monday, March 31. HB 1310 moves the independent candidate petition deadline for all office from late July to March. The bill has already passed the House.
The staff of the Senate Committee knows that in 1976, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Missouri ruled that state’s old April petition deadline unconstitutional. The staff also knows that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Anderson v Celebrezze in 1983 that March 20 is too early for independent presidential petition deadlines. Nevertheless, anyone reading this who can attend the hearing, should do so, to testify against the bill.
Why do you think that it applies to presidential candidates?
The real issues are: (1) Why doesn’t Missouri have a professional staff drafting legislation; (1a) Why is the Missouri election code such an incomprehensible mess; (2) Why was the bill pulled from the Elections Committee in the House, and assigned to the Urban Education Reform (sic) committee, other than the sponsor of the bill happens to be chairman of that committee; (3) What does a “declaration of candidacy for each primary election” mean when one is not a candidate on the primary ballot.