It appears that Connecticut SB 1146 will not advance further. That is the bill that would make it illegal for a party to nominate a non-member. The bill was opposed by dozens of witnesses at its hearing on March 25. It was intended to make it impossible for two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate, but, as written, has constitutional problems as well as political problems.

Probably as a consequence, Democrats in the legislature have now decided to support a bill that would give the Democratic Party the top line on the ballot in 2014. On March 27, the Joint Government Administration and Election Committee passed HB 6631 on a party-line vote, with Republicans opposed. Current law says the order of parties on the ballot depends on how many votes each party got for Governor in the last gubernatorial election. The bill would change that, to put the party in which the Governor was enrolled on the top line.

The reason Connecticut Democratic legislators earlier this year decided to eliminate fusion is that the party is unhappy that fusion indirectly caused the Democrats to lose the top line on the ballot for 2012 and 2014. Although a Democrat won the gubernatorial election in 2010, the Republican Party polled the most votes in November 2010. The only reason Dan Malloy, the Democrat, won is that the Working Families Party vote for him, combined with the Democratic vote for him, gave him the most votes. This left the state with a Democratic Governor, but the Republicans were to enjoy the top line on the ballot for the next two elections. At first the Democrats reasoned that if fusion were not permitted, then the vast majority of voters who voted for Malloy on the Working Families line would have voted for him on the Democratic line, since there wouldn’t be a Working Families nominee for Governor if fusion weren’t permitted.

Now that Democrats’ hopes to eliminate fusion have faded, they are trying to get back their top line by simply changing the law on ballot order. However, HB 6631 discriminates against newly-qualifying parties. In 1990 former U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker decided to run for Governor as the nominee of a new party, A Connecticut Party. He won the election, and as a result, A Connecticut Party had the top line in 1992 and 1994. But if HB 6631 had been in effect in 1990, A Connecticut Party could not have had the top line in 1992 and 1994, because it was impossible for Weicker to enroll in A Connecticut Party until after the election. Voters can’t enroll in parties in Connecticut until after they have polled 1% of the vote for some office. Thanks to Joshua Van Vranken for news about HB 6631. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story about the hearing on the anti-fusion bill.