On April 18, the Nebraska Senate Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee killed SB 969. The bill would have reduced the number of signatures for a non-presidential independent candidate from 10% of the number of registered voters, to exactly 4,000. The bill would have undid the 2016 law that hugely increased the independent petition requirement.
Some supporters of the top-two primary say that Nebraska’s legislature works better than the legislatures of most states. Nebraska is the only state in which elections for the legislature are non-partisan. But the behavior of the Nebraska legislature, making it virtually impossible for an independent candidate to get on the ballot in Nebraska for a partisan office, shows that just because the Nebraska legislature is technically non-partisan, it is no friend of independent candidates.
It is somewhat likely that a lawsuit will be filed soon to overturn the 10% petition requirement. One was already filed, but then the plaintiff, State Senator Bob Krist, decided not to be an independent candidate this year, so he withdrew the lawsuit. The new lawsuit will be different than the Krist lawsuit.
How do *nonpartisan* NE Legislature candidates get on the primary / general ballots ???
Is the *independent* stuff only for the general ballots ???
Candidates for Nebraska Senate get on the ballot by paying a filing fee. No petition needed.
RW – thanks for info.
Thus — one more election system in blatant violation of the EPC in the 14th Amdt, Sec. 1.
Yet again —
NO primaries.
PR and AppV
Candidates for senator can qualify for the general election ballot with a 10% petition. This is when a vacancy in nomination exists, or an advancer dies or withdraws.
The filing fee is $120 (1% of senators annual salary).
I suspect that someone was looking at the code and got confused for partisan offices where petition is the only way for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. The bill was dealing with school board vacancies, and reduced the petition requirement from 20% to 10%. Meanwhile, the signature requirement for other offices was raised from a flat amount to 10%. See NRS 32-618(1) and (2).
A ballot selfie amendment had also been inserted, and most of the debate was over that. Senators were saying they would vote against the entire bill if in included the selfie amendment.
SB 969 would have also restored the 20% requirement for other offices. The senator who sponsored SB 969 is a Democrat. After Krist decided to run as a Democrat, he was probably told his effort was no longer useful.