On May 4, the Alabama House passed HB 552. It lowers the independent candidate petition requirement in special elections from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1%. It does not apply to special elections if the special election was called more than 120 days before the petition deadline.
In the matter of the upcoming special U.S. Senate election to be held this year, that special election was called on April 19, and the petition deadline is August 15. That interval is less than 120 days, so assuming this bill is signed into law, the independent petition requirement for that special election will be 11,804 signatures instead of 35,413. The bill now goes to the State Senate.
The bill gives no relief to petitions to put the nominee of an unqualified party on the ballot.
In 1990, a U.S. District Court in Alabama ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to provide a higher petition requirement for independents than for newly-qualifying parties. That was Patton v Camp. Given that precedent in Alabama, it is odd that HB 552 doesn’t also include petitions for newly-qualifying parties. Thanks to Joshua Cassity for the news about HB 552.
Richard Winger
I believe the text is there for minor parties. On page 2 line 20 of the bill it states
“”(2) All candidates who have been put in nomination 21 by any caucus, convention, mass meeting, or other assembly of 22 any political party or faction and certified in writing by the 23 chair and secretary of the nominating caucus, convention, mass 24 meeting, or assembly and filed with the judge of probate, in 25 the case of a candidate for county office, and the Secretary 26 of State in all other cases, on or before 5:00 P.M. on the date of the first primary election as provided for in Section 2 17-13-”
http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/SESSBillStatusResult.ASPX?BILL=HB552&WIN_TYPE=BillResult
The problem is, the language you quote is only inside the bill because the bill must re-print the entire relevant section. Bills only change things that are underlined. Those words are not underlined.
Also if one reads the bill’s synopsis, one sees it only helps independent candidates.
It doesn’t help independents much at all. 11,000 signatures is still a very large obstacle and it’s only for special elections. Why such a high number and why only special elections? Plain and simple, it’s bad politics again.