The California State Senate Elections Committee will hear AB 1200 on Tuesday, February 21. This is a bill to revise procedures for elections for County Central Committee. It has an urgency clause, and will take effect immediately if signed into law. The bill is of some concern to the Green Party, the Peace & Freedom Party, and the American Independent Party, all of which hold elections for party office. The Libertarian Party, and Americans Elect, do not hold such elections in government-administered elections.
One more const. amdt. section —
ALL election laws must be force at least X months before the election involved.
To END the nonstop party hack robot last second stuff to subvert elections.
Do bills that have an emergency clause require a 2/3 vote? If so, what is the likelihood that it will get 2/3.
Richard:
Even though this is a being promoted as an Urgency matter, do you happen to know the date this bill MUST be signed by Governor Brown for it to take effect this year?
The California Constitution permits legislation to take effect immediately if it receives a 2/3 majority and includes the reason for the emergency. The emergency in this case is:
“In order to provide for the effective and efficient conduct of the June 5, 2012, statewide primary election, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately.”
It appears the reason behind the bill is to get county committee elections off the ballot in as many cases as possible. In general, if there are fewer candidates filing than seats on the committee, the election doesn’t go on the ballot. And since the only other partisan race on the ballot is the presidential preference primary, if they get the county committee elections off the ballot, they can use the same party ballot for the entire county.
And for the Democrats and AIP, they won’t have to have two different ballots, one for Democrats or AIP members only; and one for those voters who may request a ballot for the party, but can only for president, and not the central committee.
It might even be possible to use separate ballots, so that everyone in particular set of districts will get a nonpartisan ballot with the voter-nominated and nonpartisan offices, and then another ballot with the presidential race specific to the voter of a party.
There are also some really goofy laws in Division 7. For example, in the Republican section, it assumes that the Assembly district numbers will be 12 and 13.
So its likely that every county election official in the state has called their legislature and told them it will save money and is a technical cleanup, and it has to be done before the primary. I’d guess it will be by unanimous vote.
#2, yes, this requires a 2/3 vote. But I think that’s pretty likely unless politicians in the major parties care about write-ins for central committee elections. I suspect they don’t. The pressure from CACEO has to be pretty intense to account for the rush to get this done.
#3, I think that depends on the meaning of “must”. The first day for write-in candidates to file is April 9. If the bill is signed on April 10, what happens to write-in candidates who filed on the first day (physically possible even though signature gathering is involved)?
But April 9 is misleading, at least for small parties. In reality, the horses leave the starting gate on February 13, the first day to take out papers as a regular candidate rather than a write-in. That’s eight days before the first committee hearing on the bill, never mind when it gets signed.
But February 13 is also misleading. You can run as a write-in even if you have not been registered in the party for three months or were registered in a different party during the previous year (these are requirements for regular candidates). The horses left that starting gate on March 9, 2011.
Remember that the Peace and Freedom central committee elections are also electing delegates to the convention that nominates our presidential candidate. Taking away the write-in option on any date after March 9, 2011 — almost a year ago — dramatically alters the rules of Peace and Freedom nomination process far too late for supporters of some (or even all) of the candidates to adapt.
#6 If there are competing slates of committee members, won’t sufficient numbers file to require an election?
#7, when there are competing slates, generally at least one of them includes candidates who are new to the party. Under California law, these newcomers are eligible to run as write-ins but not eligible to run otherwise. This may seem a little odd, heck it may even be a little odd, but it’s the law. We have been doing things this way for years.
#8 If there are 2 complete slates, that would be 2N candidates, where N is the number of seats to be filled in that supervisor or assembly district. So long as the number of write-in candidates is less than N, then under the new legislation, that race will be on the ballot, and write-in candidates may file.