On March 14, Texas Representative Leo Berman withdrew his bill, HB 418. This is the bill that would have imposed filing fees on candidates who get on the November ballot by petition and by convention, i.e., independent candidates and the nominees of minor parties. The Texas minor parties had done a good job of organizing opposition to this bill at its hearing on March 7. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
On March 15, the California Assembly Elections Committee passed AB 80 unanimously. It moves the presidential primary from February to June. Because the primary for office other than President is already in June, combining the presidential primary with the non-presidential primary to a single date will save almost $100,000,000.
Also on March 15, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 205 by a vote of 3-2. It outlaws paying anyone who goes out in public and asks voters to change their registration from one party to another, if the payment is based on a per-registration basis. The payment may not be on a per-registration basis “directly or indirectly”, which seems to say that if someone hires someone else to obtain voter registration changes, the payer can’t even give a bonus for high-performance workers. This bill will make it far more difficult for parties to maintain their place on the ballot, or to qualify for the ballot. The only procedure remaining in California for a party to be ballot-qualified is to have at least 103,004 registered members. The Libertarian Party needs another 11,000 registrants, and the Peace & Freedom Party needs another 45,000 registrants, although not until 2014. Making it illegal for these parties to hire “salespeople” to get them more registrants will hamper these registration drives, if the parties can’t pay the workers on a per-registrant basis.
Dave Kadlecek of the Peace & Freedom Party, and Richard Winger (the person writing this post) testified against the bill. Winger testified that the bill should be amended, to no longer define “political party” by how many registered voters it has. However, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Lou Correa, chair of the Committee, seemed uninterested in that proposal. The two Republicans on the Senate Elections Committee, Doug LaMalfa and Ted Gaines, expressed sympathy for minor parties and voted against the bill.
Finally, the California Senate Elections Committee passed SB 168 on a 3-2 vote, with the three Democrats voting in favor. This bill makes it illegal to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. However, Senator Ted Lieu stated that although he would vote for the bill in Committee, that he had serious doubts about the bill and that he likely would oppose it on the Senate floor.
Wisconsin has the recall for state officers, but says no one can be recalled until at least one year after he or she took office. Governor Scott Walker is already the object of a recall attempt, even though the petition can’t start to circulate until January 3, 2012. An anti-Walker web page says already 149,000 people have signed a pledge to sign the petition, as soon as it can circulate. The petition will need about 540,000 signatures. See this story.
In the meantime, recall petitions are circulating now for half the Wisconsin State Senate. Senators have four year terms and half of them are subject to recall petitioning now. Both Democratic and Republican State Senators are the target.
On March 14, Coconino County settled a lawsuit that had been filed in October 2010, by a voter who wasn’t permitted to vote at the polls because she was wearing a T-shirt that included a depiction of the American flag, “We the People” script from the Constitution, and the phrase “Flagstaff Tea Party – Reclaiming our Constitution Now.”
Polling place officials felt the T-shirt was illegal “electioneering”, but of course there was no ballot-listed Tea Party on the ballot in Arizona. The voter won injunctive relief last year and now Coconino County has agreed to interpret the electioneering law to include only clothing that refers to a candidate or a party that is actually listed on the ballot. The case had been Wickberg v Owens, cv10-8177-PHX, in U.S. District Court. The county also had to pay $46,000 in attorneys’ fees. See this story.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon will hold a trial April 21-22, in Citizens in Charge v Gale, 4:09-cv-3255. This is the case that challenges Nebraska’s ban on out-of-state circulators.
On March 14, the Arizona House passed HB 2304 by a vote of 51-5. Among many other election law changes, it says that when a political party gets on the ballot, it is then on the ballot for the next two elections, instead of just one election. If this bill is signed into law, the Arizona Green Party will be on the ballot in 2012.
The bill also legalizes out-of-state circulators for all types of petition. The existing law says out-of-state circulators may work on an independent presidential candidate’s petition, but no other kind of petition.
Unfortunately, the House amended the bill so that it no longer makes it easier for a member of a newly-qualifying party to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot. The existing law for that requires a petition signed by members of that party, equal to one-tenth of 1% of the vote for that same office in the last general election. The number of signatures for candidates to get on a primary of an old established party is more lenient, one-half of 1% of that party’s membership. However, the existing law also makes it very easy for a candidate to win a new party’s primary on write-in votes at that party’s primary.