The general election campaign season starts in earnest after Labor Day. For the next two months, state legislators who are running for re-election should be found speaking in public, or holding public meetings. This is the prime time for anyone to talk to a state legislator about bills in the 2019 sessions of legislatures. Many state legislatures have severe limits on how many bills any one legislator may introduce. Also many state legislatures have strick time limits. Indiana, for example, requires all new bills to be introduced December of the year before the session starts.
The ballot access laws have improved considerably in the last few years, and most of that progress has come from persuading state legislatures to ease the laws. But lobbying is urgently needed in Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
Efforts in Indiana have continued throughout the summer.
URGENTLY NEEDED —
Plaintiff lawyers with brain cells —
1. Separate is NOT equal — major, old minor, new minor, independents.
2. Each election is NEW – since 1st election.
3. EQUAL ballot access tests for ballot access — ALL candidates for same office in same area.
I am currently working on submitting a questionnaire to all candidates for state office and nominated legislators. Hoping to get a bill or two submitted in the 2019 session.
Just curious as to what ballot access issue is so urgent in Idaho that Mr. Winger feels compelled to call out lobbyists. Relative to most other states, Idaho has fairly benign ballot access laws.
Floyd, Idaho has the nation’s highest petition requirement for new parties, when the requirements of all states are compared using the number of registered voters as the denominator. 2% of the presidential vote, which Idaho requires, is even worse than 3% of the gubernatorial vote in Alabama, because the turnout is so much higher in presidential years than midterm years.
This comparison uses the easier method in each state to get a new party on the ballot. So even though the full party petitions in Rhode Island and Minnesota are higher, those two states let new parties use the independent candidate petition procedure and let them have a party label, so the independent method is an alternate method for new parties.
The Idaho party petition is so difficult, it hasn’t been used since 1996, unless one counts Americans Elect in 2011, which was backed by a multi-millionaire.
Idaho is one of the few states in which the Green Party has never been on the ballot.
what needs to be done in Minnesota and North Dakota? Send me an email with some specifics.