Texas Representative Kelly Hancock (R-Fort Worth) has introduced HB 1193, to let qualified political parties hold their national presidential conventions as late as they wish. Existing law says qualified parties must certify their presidential and vice-presidential nominees by late August. The bill says they simply must certify their national nominees within one business day after the close of the national convention.
Of course, as most readers of this blog know, last year the Texas Secretary of State ignored the statutory deadline and placed the Republican and Democratic tickets on the ballot anyway, even though they did not meet the statutory deadline.
Bills in Wyoming and Virginia, designed to force qualified parties to hold their national conventions somewhat earlier than they did last year, have made headway. The Virginia bill, SB 1155, imposes a deadline of 74 days before the general election. It has passed the Senate and on February 17 passed a House Subcommittee.
The Wyoming bill, HB 76, has passed the House.
The interesting part about HB 1193 is that it would require the Secretary of State to delay sending of the candidate names for late-filing parties. As it is written, this could permit a party to hold its convention in October, and file its candidates then.
In 2008, the Secretary of State was able to send out the names of the Republican and Democrat candidates before the deadline for all other offices. The problem was that the law gave the Secretary of State 8 days to do something that would take minutes to do.
If Texas would hold a direct primary for presidential candidates, it wouldn’t have this problem. The nominees would be known by mid-April after a possible runoff. Even parties that hold statewide conventions for nomination (eg the Libertarians) have to hold them in June.