On June 29, the Ohio House again passed HB 194. It had already been passed by the Senate. The House then (on June 29) accepted the Senate’s amendments, so the bill is through the legislature. The bill moves the presidential primary to the first week in May, and sets the petition deadline for new parties at 90 days before the primary. This gives Ohio a petition deadline that is almost certainly unconstitutionally early, even though the bill does improve the deadline. There are no reported decisions that uphold a petition deadline that early, and there are 15 decisions that strike down petition deadlines that early, including Williams v Rhodes, a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The old deadline, in November of odd years, was declared unconstitutional in 2006, and Ohio officials will now probably say that HB 194 cures the constitutional infirmity.