On October 30, the Ohio House passed SB 193, after adding an amendment that for 2014 only, the petition for a newly-qualifying party should be 10,000 signatures. Also the bill had been amended earlier on October 30 in the House to set the vote test at 2% (the Senate version had been 3%) and the party petition in normal years to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast (the Senate version had been 1%).
In the evening of October 30, the Senate rejected all the House amendments.
The Senate may only concur in accepting the House amendments in toto. Now that the Senate has refused to concur (on a 0-29) vote, the House may either recede on its amendments, which means that the Senate version is passed, or it may request a conference committee.
When the Senate met, Sen. Seitz, the Senate sponsor, made a motion to concur in the House amendments, and explained what they were (in addition the House stripped the urgency clause). He said that the distribution requirements remained in place for next year.
After it was pointed out that the distribution requirements had been stripped, there was a hasty recess to hold a Republican caucus. After the caucus, Sen. Seitz, said that it had not been the intent of the House to strip out the distribution requirements, and then urged a No vote on concurrence. It is not clear that the distribution requirement is even a sticking point – it was more the case of surprise that it had been left out for 2014.
I suspect that a conference committee will put some sort of distribution requirement back in. The 500 from 8 CDs is essentially irrelevant for 56,000 signatures, or even 28,000 signatures. If you managed to get 499 signatures from 9 districts, you would need to average 3358 from the remaining 7 districts to get 28,000 signatures without meeting the distribution requirements.
What next? Is it dead now?
Jim Riley,
Thank you for keeping us informed. It is a terrible, and shameful bill, either version. It is anti-american.
The GOP or Grand Oligarchy Party continues showcase their relentless attack on suffrage voter freedom. They Gerrymandered the Democrats out of significant power and now the laws will eliminate or try to eliminate other competition.
Welcome to my home state, called OHIO–The Oligarchy Home is in Ohio.
Simple fix could have been 2,500 signatures by the February 5, 2014 candidate filing deadline for party status AND to keep the Minor Party Primary in May 2014. It would have been same ratio as the 10,000 signatures by early July which eliminates the Minor Party Primary for 2014.