On June 16, the Louisiana legislature passed HB 292. It sets up a single ballot for congressional candidates, which all voters use. This ballot is used in November. If anyone gets 50% or more of the vote, that person is elected. Otherwise, there is a run-off in December.
This system is somewhat different from the California and Washington state top-two laws. Louisiana does not prevent any candidate for Congress from campaigning during the summer and fall campaign season.
The Louisiana bill does not take effect until 2011.
California can change its primary date to later in the year. It is simply inane that county and city officials, or the Superintendent of Public Instruction have a primary in June with a runoff in November. Now that the 2nd stage is essentially a runoff, there is no need for the long gap.
P.R. and App.V.
NO primaries are needed.
Direct Representation. No main election needed either, at least for a legislature. You’d still need it for the executive. Check out L. Neil Smith’s novel “The Probability Broach” for one way to implement it.
How is this different from the older law that was ruled unconstitutional?
Very few California cities have the system described in comment #1. General law cities in California are required to use one-round elections for their own elections. Only charter cities can have two-round elections, and the only cities I know of that have their first round as far as 5 months from its second round are San Diego and San Jose, and San Jose is thinking about abolishing its first round and using IRV.
Doesn’t this law have to be approved by the Justice Department? I thought that under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the states of the old CSA had to get approval before making election law changes.
San Diego and San Jose are the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in California.
Has Sacramento changed since they used a June-November schedule in 2008?
Fresno held its city elections last week, with the runoffs scheduled for November.
So that is 4 of the 7 largest cities in the state.
If the primary were moved to August or October, then the legislature might reasonably adopt a switch to runoffs for general law cities.
It is one more govt IDIOCY to permit local regimes to be independent empires in ANY subject area — elections or whatever — BUT, of course, this is the New Age of mini-empires, etc. — ALL heading towards a MAJOR breakdown.
See the CA regime circa $ 20 Billion deficit — enough to really set things off ??? Stay tuned.
#6 They have to get preclearance before implementing changes. The original House bill set the effective date for January 1, 2011 (the system is also used for special congressional elections).
The Senate amended it to take effect for this year’s elections. The senators did not appear to realize the schedule for the elections (the first congressional (party) primary is scheduled for late August, and because of deadlines for sending out overseas ballots, the filing deadline is in early July.
The governmental entity files, and then the DOJ has 60 days to interpose objections. The DOJ doesn’t have to approve a change for it to take effect, they simply have to not object. Even when the DOJ gives official notice of not objecting they reserve the right to challenge the law later on, but that would be in federal court.
There was probably time if Louisiana was just scheduling a November election, but Louisiana already has an election schedule that begins with filing in July and sending out overseas absentee ballots for an August election soon after. They would have to start that process and then cancel it if the DOJ did not object. And the DOJ might object simply because it would have been confusing to voters.
In addition, the legislature had scheduled other elections to be coincident with the 2nd congressional (party runoff) primary in October, including the special election for Lt.Governor and some constitutional amendments. So they would have also had to reschedule those elections, or end up holding 3 elections anyhow.
The House rejected the Senate’s amendment to the effective date. And then a conference committee agreed to go back to the January 1, 2011 effective date, while agreeing to the Senate amendments that removed some obsolete language relating to an election in 1995.
This week, the House and Senate have both approved the conference committee report, which means it will become law when Governor Jindal signs it.
If Louisiana did not need DOJ approval (non-disapproval), they would likely have implemented the change for this year. They delayed the effective date until next year in order that the DOJ had time to process the change. Since they are returning to the system that was used for 30 years, it would be bizarre if the DOJ objected.
Jim Riley- Thanks for the explanation.
#4 Louisiana holds most of their elections in odd-numbered years, with an open primary in October and a runoff in November (though on a Saturday toward the middle of the month, rather than on the first Tuesday after the first Monday).
When they applied it to congressional elections, they set the open primary for early October or late September, with a runoff on the date set by Congress for election day.
But Louisiana does not require a runoff if a candidate receives a majority in the open primary. It actually certifies the winner after the primary, and cancels the runoff election. Since Louisiana holds so few elections in even-numbered years, this meant that usually there were no congressional elections in November, and the polling places were not even open for other elections.
This was challenged in Foster v Love where the Supreme Court ruled that since as matter of Louisiana law most representative and senators were officially elected in October, that it was contrary to the date set by Congress for “choosing” representatives and senators. The case was remanded to the federal district court for resolution.
The trial court waited for the legislature to act, but it deadlocked between the House, which wanted to simply change the election schedule, and the Senate that wanted to go back to the old partisan primary system. The trial court eventually ruled that the election schedule should be changed to November-December.
This decision was challenged in Love v Foster and upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Technically, the challenge was not about the dates, but rather whether the court should have simply gone back to the last constitutional election law (pre-1978, which was for partisan primaries). The Louisiana legislature later codified the November-December election schedule.
Louisiana didn’t really like the December runoff (or perhaps were convince that they didn’t like it by those who wanted to re-institute the party primaries.
The legislature later passed a modified version of the open primary. If two candidates filed, there would not be a primary, but they would be on the November general election ballot. If there was only one candidate or more than two candidates, with one candidate receiving a majority, only one candidate would advance to the November election. The election would be cancelled, and the winning candidate certified (in November).
Foster v Love was fairly narrowly decided, based on the fact Louisiana law said that a candidate could be elected in October, and during oral arguments before the Supreme Court, justices asked what would happen if a general election were held in November with one candidate on the ballot. Louisiana on the other hand argued that their system was so novel that they could hold the primary in July and the runoff in August if they wanted to. So by going back to a modified October-November schedule, the legislature was testing whether Foster v Love was as narrowly drawn as it might appear.
The new law was challenged in (daughter of) Love v Blanco and overturned by a federal district court. The case was filed on behalf of the minor daughter of the plaintiff in the earlier case, who would have turned 18 between the open primary in October and the November runoff which might not have happened, and also asserted that the schedule violated the 26th Amendment.
It was after that decision that the Louisiana legislature went back to the partisan primary election scheme, so that they could avoid a December runoff (in effect, legislators were told, “we tried to figure out a way to switch back to a November election, but the only way is apparently to use a partisan primary election.)
Louisiana requires a majority for nomination, so they ended up having to use three elections. And while the nominees received a majority support of their party, the candidate elected at the general election might not (and did not in 4 elections in 2008).
Since Louisiana continues to use an open primary for other elections, they had to use a lockout device on their voting machines, which poll workers manipulated to prevent voters from voting in congressional elections, while permitting them to vote in elections for members of the larger branch of the legislature. This is a clear violation of a straightforward reading of the US Constitution regarding the qualification of voters to vote for Congress.
And because of physical limitations of the lockout devices, the legislature considered excluding minor parties from nominating congressional candidates.
Louisiana continues to cancel elections with only one candidate, so in 2008, voters in two (of 7) congressional districts were denied the ability to choose their representative on the date designated by Congress for almost 140 years. Were it not for the presidential and senatorial election, the polling places would have been shuttered.
So the new law simply goes back to the schedule fashioned by the federal district court after Foster v Love, which was upheld by the 5th Circuit in Love v Foster.
Has Mother Nature sent Katrina and the OIL disaster into LA to teach the LA MORONS a lesson NOT to ignore 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 ???
#6: It’s Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and there are some jurisdictions outside the South that have to get preclearance, e. g., four counties in California. Preclearance may be sought from either the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) or the US district court for the District of Columbia.
For the second of five times, the Mississippi legislature in 1970 passed the “open primary” for state and local elections, and the governor signed it. The DOJ wrote a letter stating that it did not have enough time to approve or disapprove the law. A lawsuit was then filed, and the three-judge federal panel correctly ruled that it did not have the authority to implement the law (Evers v. State Board of Election Commissioners).
A federal suit was recently brought in North Carolina against Section 5 of the VRA.
Louisiana has used its “open primary” for state and local elections since 1975. It also used it for congressional elections from 1978 through 2006.
Will the usual suspect D/R gangs be filing a lawsuit against the LA primary system ???
What part of the U.S.A. Constitution mentions ANY pre-clearance stuff by the U.S.A. regime for ANY laws in an allegedly sovereign State of the Union ???
For the clueless – the VRA is one more giant perversion of the 15th Amdt — written in connection with 14th Amdt, Sec. 2.
The MORON courts can NOT make the connection — since the MORON courts are brain dead ignorant about the English language and U.S.A. political history.
The MORONS in the gerrymander Congress are too stupid to pass a very simple law —
Any officer or employee of the U.S.A. government or any State or local government whose act or omission violates the 13th, 14th or 15th Amendment shall be
(1) guilty of a felony and
(2) upon conviction shall be put in jail for 100 years and fined one billion dollars and
(3) be subject in a civil action for unlimited damages by the person(s) whose rights in any of such amendments are violated.
Simple – lots less violations of constitutional rights by MORON govt officials.