This newspaper story covers negotiations in the Idaho legislature over possible changes in the Republican Party primaries of the future. The very end of the story quotes Secretary of State Ben Ysursa as saying “The battle’s over”, which seems to say that the state won’t appeal the March 2 decision in Idaho Republican Party v Ysursa. The decision said that the Republican Party has a right to prevent non-Republicans from voting in its primaries.
On March 10, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs, an Obama appointee, held a hearing (starting at 10 a.m.) in Greenville County Republican Party v State of South Carolina, 6:10-cv-1407. The hearing is in Greenville. This is the lawsuit in which the Republican Party seeks to prevent non-members from voting in the party’s primaries. The case also challenges a state law that says if a party decides to nominate by convention, it can only do that if at least 3/4ths of the delegates to a party meeting vote in favor of convention nominations. See this story, which was written before the hearing started.
The hearing is still preceding as this post is being written. Check back later for any possible account of the hearing. A decision is expected fairly quickly, because there are partisan elections for Greenville city office later this year and the party hopes for a ruling in time to affect that election. UPDATE: the hearing lasted 2.5 hours. The judge did not indicate when she will rule.
On March 9, the North Carolina House Elections Committee discussed the ballot access bill, HB 32, but did not pass it because of time constraints, and because not all amendments had been drafted. The committee still seems amenable to passing the bill, and lowering the number of signatures for new parties and independent candidates to get on the ballot. Also they seem willing to ease the vote test for a party to remain ballot-qualified. But they strongly desire to make the petition deadlines earlier in the year. The bill will probably be heard again on March 16.
On March 4, Hawaii filed this response brief in Nader v Nago, 10-728. This is the case in which Ralph Nader challenges the number of signatures needed for an independent presidential candidate, on the basis that the law is irrational, because Hawaii requires approximately six times as many signatures for an independent presidential candidate as for an entire new party. In Hawaii, when a new party qualifies by petition, it nominates by primary and is free to run for every partisan office in the state. If the purpose of ballot access restrictions is to keep the ballot uncrowded, it seems irrational to require a single independent presidential candidate (who only appears on the November ballot) to obtain so many more signatures than a new party, which in theory could put dozens of nominees on both the primary ballot and the general election ballot.
The state’s brief nevertheless insists that the new party procedure is just as difficult as the independent presidential petition, because the presidential candidate of a newly-qualifying party must worry about getting the presidential nomination of that party. Also, the petition to create a new party is due much earlier in the year than the independent presidential candidate petition.
An objective means of knowing which measure is more difficult is to examine how many successful party petitions there have been in the last ten years, versus how many independent presidential candidate petitions there have been. There have been seven successful new party petitions in the last ten years, but zero independent presidential candidate petitions. The seven successful party petitions were submitted by the Libertarian Party in 2002, the Green Party in 2008 and 2010, the Free Energy Party in 2002 and 2010, the Constitution Party in 2008, and the Independent Party in 2008.
If you click on the link to read Hawaii’s brief, the very first page, the cover page, is difficult to read, but the following pages are not difficult to read.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on March 25 whether to hear Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. This is the case that concerns Connecticut’s public funding law, which discriminates heavily against independent candidates and the candidates of new political parties. The U.S. District Court had struck down the discriminatory parts, but the 2nd circuit had reinstated them in a 2-1 opinion.
Medill Reports, publication of the Graduate School of Journalism at Northwestern University, has this story about Illinois HB 2010, authored by Representative Mike Fortner. His bill lowers the number of signatures for independent candidates substantially, although it makes the petition deadline somewhat more restrictive, and also shrinks the amount of time in which to collect the signatures.
The story also mentions HB 2009, also by Representative Fortner. That bill eases who may qualify to run in a partisan primary, by saying it is immaterial if someone who wants to run in a primary had voted in another party’s primary in the preceding year.
The Alton Daily News has this story about HB 2854, the bill by Representative Jim Watson to completely eliminate mandatory petitions, for candidates who pay a filing fee of 1% of the office’s annual salary. Also see this earlier story about HB 2854 in the Springfield newspaper, the Journal-Register (scroll down).