Both houses of the Alabama legislature have passed bills to move the state’s presidential primary from June to February. The House passed HB 51, and the Senate passed SB 527. On Monday, April 17, the last day of the session, one or the other houses is likely to pass the bill that the other house already passed.

If so, this will continue to trend toward earlier presidential primaries, combined with later national conventions. The major parties are responsible for this trend, even though it damages the major parties. When presidential primaries in February determine the identity of each party’s presidential nominee, yet these candidates are not officially nominated until August or September, that leave a huge amount of time in which groups who don’t like either party’s choice may begin to settle on a presidential candidate from outside the major parties.