On March 22, the Alaska government determined that the special primary to fill the vacant U.S. House seat will be on June 11, a Saturday. The election will be an all-postal ballot election, except that there will be vote centers for people who don’t wish to vote by mail.
Candidates must file by April 1.
As previously noted, on February 22, the Arizona House passed HCR 2015, which requires initiatives to pass with 60% of the vote instead of a simple majority. However, the Senate has not acted on the bill, which suggests that it will not pass.
Both houses of the Tennessee legislature have passed bills establishing a duration of residency requirement for congressional candidates. However, the versions in each house differ, and so far the two houses have not agreed on the details of the bill.
The Senate wants the restriction to only apply to candidates running in a primary. The House wants to restrict all candidates. Both bills require residency of three years in the state. The Senate bill has no restriction on residency in the district, but the House bill also requires residency in the district.
The bill is SB 2616. If it becomes law, it will be void under the U.S. Supreme Court decision U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, issued in 1995.
On March 21, Republican congressional candidate Erik Aadland sued the Secretary of State in state court, alleging that he does have enough valid signatures to be on the Republican primary ballot for U.S. House, 7th district. See this story. The Secretary of State’s office had determined that he was short 46 signatures.
The primaries are on June 28, 2022.
The Tennessee Senate Local Government Committee had been set to hear SB 2189 on Tuesday, March 22. However the hearing has been postponed until Wednesday, March 23. This is the bill to ease the petition needed for new party recognition.
An identical bill in the House lost on the House floor last week, by only two votes. More representatives voted for it than against it, but abstentions count as “no” votes, and 15 representatives didn’t vote. If the Senate bill passes, that bill could be brought up in the House later.
