On March 28, the Tennessee House Subcommittee on Local Government passed HB 662. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (33,816 signatures) to exactly 5,000. The bill was amended to provide that small qualified parties would always nominate by convention, not primary, which would save taxpayer dollars. The vote in the subcommittee was 3-2. The bill now goes to the full Committee. Thanks to Daniel Lewis for this news.