On April 26, the Florida Senate Budget Committee passed SB 2086, the Senate version of the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill. The vote was 13-7. The bill has the same provisions making ballot access more difficult for the presidential nominees of new political parties that HB 1355 has, except that the petition would be 2% of the last presidential vote (167,815 signatures) instead of 4%. The Senate bill requires approximately 5,000 signatures on that petition from each of fourteen U.S. House districts, and requires the group to pay to have the petition checked. It appears to require that the presidential and vice-presidential candidate’s names appear on the petition, which would rob the new party of any ability to choose its presidential nominee in the late spring or summer of the election year.

The bill also makes it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot, by requiring that the signatures for an initiative be completed within two years, not four years. The bill prohibits a political party from nominating anyone who was a registered member of another party at any time during the odd year before the election, or during the election year itself. It makes no exception for newly-created parties.

The part of the bills concerning presidential nominees appears to conflict with the Florida Constitution, which says, “The requirements for a candidate with no party affiliation or for a candidate of a minor party for placement of the candidate’s name on the ballot shall be no greater than the requirements for a candidate of the party having the largest number of registered voters.”