On September 2, the California Senate passed AB 446, which makes modest improvements in the procedure to qualify a new party. The only Senator who voted against the bill is Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Ironically, back in 1979, in his first stint as a State Senator, he introduced a bill to greatly ease the law for new parties to get on the ballot. He did that on behalf of the American Party, which was a rival of the American Independent Party. It would have allowed any party to get on the ballot just by submitting a list of its officers and a copy of its bylaws, similar to the law now in effect in Florida and Mississippi.

AB 446 lowers the petition for a new party from 10% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 3%. This is a significant change, but it isn’t too meaningful because almost no group uses the petition procedure. Instead they almost invariably use the registration alternative, which requires members of .33% of the state registration total.

On September 2, the Georgia Secretary of State filed a brief in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. The purpose of the brief is to react to the U.S. District Court’s tentative decision to require petitions of 1% of the number of registered voters, plus a filing fee of approximately $5,200, for U.S. House candidates who are not nominees of a party that polled 20% of the vote in the last election.

The state’s brief says the judge has no authority to reduce the requirements for legislative candidates, or candidates for partisan county office, because the original Complaint only challenged the U.S. House requirements. The state also objects to lowering the petition to 1%, but it doesn’t suggest what the state thinks the interim relief should be.

The state submits a list of precedents from other states that upheld petition requirements of 3% or 5% of the last vote cast, but the list contains errors. It says the First Circuit upheld New Hampshire’s 3% (of the last gubernatorial vote) petition in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner. That is not true; that decision upheld the requirement of 3,000 signatures for statewide candidates and 1,500 signatures for U.S. House candidates.

The state says that the Tenth Circuit upheld Oklahoma’s 5% petition in Rainbow Coalition of Oklahoma v Oklahoma State Election Board, but in that case, a minor party or independent candidate could run for U.S. House (or any partisan office other than president) with no petition at all. The 5% petition was only required to put the party label on the ballot. The state says that Fifth Circuit upheld Louisiana’s “5% signature requirement” in Dart v Brown, but Louisiana let any candidate on the ballot for U.S. House, or any office, with just a filing fee; the decision only related to whether the candidate could have a party label. Also Louisiana’s law did not involve a petition, but a registration test.

On September 1, two Texas Democratic State Senators filed a federal lawsuit to prevent the special session of the Texas legislature from drawing new U.S. House and legislative districts. The Complaint alleges that the Texas Constitution does not permit redistricting in special sessions. And Texas won’t have a regular legislative session until 2023. Eckhardt v Abbott, w.d. 1:21cv-769. The case requires a 3-judge court, and the judges have already been selected. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.