On July 12, the California Senate Elections Committee passed AB 446 by 4-1. This is the bill that lowers the petition for a new party from 10% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. It also permits a new party to use a party name that had in the past been used by an earlier group.

In California, the petition procedure for new parties is almost never used. Almost every new party instead chooses to use the registration method, which requires a group to persuade apprpximately 70,000 individuals to register into the new group. Therefore the impact of easing the party petition is very minimal.

On July 12, attorneys for the state of California filed this brief in the case over whether paid petitioners must be classed as employees instead of independent contractors. Thanks to Aaron Starr for the link.

On July 12, the Libertarian Party announced the results of the ranked choice voting for national chair of the party. The new chair is Whitney Bilyeu, who has recently been the state chair of the Texas party. There were five rounds before a winner was determined. The decision was made by the national committee, meeting yesterday by zoom.

She is the fourth female in that position. The first was Susan Nolan; the second was Alicia Clark; the third was Mary Gingell.