The Tennessee House State and Local Government Subcommittee will hear HB 794 on Wednesday, March 30. This is the bill that makes minor improvements in the ballot access law for minor parties. The existing law was struck down in federal court last year. The bill moves the petition deadline from March to early April, and removes the petition wording that implies signers are members. But the improvement in the deadline does not go far enough. The court decision last year said a deadline four months before the primary is too early, and the Tennessee non-presidential primary is in August.

When an identical bill, SB 935, was heard in the Senate State and Local Government Committee, that committee passed the bill unanimously. No one testified that the bill didn’t make enough improvement. One Libertarian was in the audience for the hearing, but he hadn’t arrived in time to sign up to testify. However, it is likely that several minor party activists will testify in the House Committee. The bill makes no change in the number of signatures, which for 2012 is 40,042 (2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote). No party has qualified by petition in Tennessee since 1968. That history is one reason the law was declared unconstitutional last year.

SB 935 was to have been voted on in the Tennessee Senate on consent on March 21, but then the bill was taken off the consent calendar and set for March 24. But it has now been postponed again, to March 31. This probably indicates that some Senators realize the bill is inadequate.