Louisiana’s legislature will probably pass HB 292 this year. It eliminates party nominees for Congressional elections. It says that all candidates for Congress would run in November on a single ballot, and all voters would use that ballot. If anyone gets 50% in November, that person is elected. Otherwise, there would be a run-off in December.
It’s not clear that the legislature will make the change effective this year. Bayou Buzz, a Louisiana politics blog, discusses the consequences for particular members of Congress if the bill takes effect this year. The existing system in Louisiana for congressional elections is a semi-closed primary system. When the semi-closed primary system was used in 2008 for the first time, two incumbent members of Congress were defeated for re-election.
Bayou Buzz also discusses the possibility that the U.S. Justice Department, Voting Rights Section, might not approve HB 292, or might not approve as applied to this year’s election.
Hey Richard, no blog entry on the CPUSA national convention? Well, it happened… here it is:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7133947
The Congressional 1st Primary is in late August, and the filing deadline is early July (the overseas ballots have to go out soon after). There is time to get pre-clearance for the open primary which would have a filing deadline in September. I
But it seems like it would really be tough to get clearance to cancel the closed primary in time. You can’t cancel filing and the ending out absentee ballots simply because you hope for the election to be cancelled. Because Louisiana uses a reasonable election calendar, overseas voters receive contingent ballots for up to 2 additional elections depending on their party affiliation.
In 2008, one of the defeated “incumbents” had been in office for 5 months. He was defeated because a candidate who had run as a Democrat in the special election in Spring 2008, ran as independent in the general election for the full term.
This is not too dissimilar from the 1980 election in which an incumbent was defeated under the open primary. He had first been elected in 1978 in an extremely close election, which had been upheld by a partisan decision of the US House since it could only be proven that 60-odd of the 200-or-so vote margin were fraudulent.
The other incumbent who was defeated in 2008, was defeated because (1) the general election for the congressional race was delayed by Hurricane Gustav so that it was not held coincident with the presidential election (Obama received 72% of the vote in the district); (2) the incumbent was under indictment for bribery.
In Louisiana’s party primaries for Congress, the Democrats invite registered independents to vote in their primary, while the Republicans do not.
Thus the Democrats have a semi-closed primary, and the Republicans have a closed primary.
The House today rejected the Senate amendments on an 89-2 vote. It was noted that the legislature had already proposed two constitutional amendments that are scheduled to be voted in October (coincident with the 2nd congressional primary).
There are also coincidental elections in the fall whose date are tied to the statewide election schedule. This year they include the special election for Lt.Governor. Typically, these are conducted using an open primary and runoff if necessary.
In odd-numbered years, the open primary is in October, with the runoff in November (but not the first Tuesday after the first Monday, but rather a Saturday later in the month). Any coincidental elections are held on the date of the open primary in October.
In even-numbered years, when closed primaries are used for congressional elections, coincidental elections take place in early October coincident with the congressional 2nd primary (the party runoff). Any runoff for the coincidental elections is then coincident with the congressional general election on TFTATFMIN.
HB 292 would switch back to an open congressional primary on TFTATFMIN, and a runoff in December; and would also move the date for coincidental elections to November.
And you still have the problem of getting DOJ pre-clearance in time (it is conceivable that the October dates for the constitutional amendment have already been pre-cleared)
#3 What if the Republicans permitted independents to vote in congressional primaries. Can a voter switch between the 1st and 2nd primaries? And if so, would that be a semi-demi-closed primary, or a demi-semi-closed primary.
#5: A comedian!
Alabama’s Republicans invite people who voted in the Democratic primary to cross over and vote in the Republican runoff (or second) primary several weeks later– since state law does not prohibit it.
To my knowledge, this is the only instance of such a practice.