On March 10, the Nebraska Senate passed LB 399, which eliminates the county distribution requirement for statewide non-presidential independent candidates. The bill has no effect on the number of signatures needed, which continues to be 4,000. But it eliminates the need to collect 50 signatures from each of 31 counties. Instead, there must be 750 signatures from each of the three U.S. House districts. The new distribution requirement would permit a statewide candidate to confine his or her petitioning to just three populous counties, if the candidate wishes.

The old distribution requirement had been passed in 2007, and no one had ever completed the statewide non-presidential independent petition since then.

Pennsylvania is now the only state in the nation with a county-based distribution requirement for statewide candidate petitions. These county-based distribution requirements were declared unconstitutional in 1969 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Moore v Ogilvie. The Pennsylvania county-based distribution requirements only affect candidates seeking a place on a primary ballot. In 1979 a federal court in Pennsylvania ruled that state’s county-distribution requirement unconstitutional, but the Pennsylvania legislature responded by only repealing it for candidates for president and U.S. Senate. It continues to exist for gubernatorial candidates and candidates for statewide judicial races.

LB 399 is the first bill, improving ballot access, that has passed a legislature so far in 2011. The bill only passed because a lawsuit is challenging the law. Assuming the Governor signs LB 399, that part of the lawsuit will now be moot. Another point in the lawsuit challenges the ban on out-of-state circulators. That part of the lawsuit has a trial next month. The lawsuit is called Citizens in Charge v Gale, 4:09-cv-3255.