On February 12, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee passed HB 2338. It moves the deadline for candidates who are filing to run in a partisan primary from April to January. The primary is in late June. The bill also moves the independent candidate deadline (for office other than president) to file from April to January.

The author said the purpose of the bill is to standardize the filing deadline for non-presidential candidates with the filing deadline for candidates running in the March presidential primary. The bill allows a later deadline for candidates filing in the primary of a new party.

No one seems to have discussed the problem that moving the non-presidential independent deadline to January is almost surely unconstitutional. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for the news about the bill passing the Committee.