On March 22, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, 20-649. The plaintiffs included the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. The case challenged the FEC’s determination that the Commission on Presidential Debates is not breaking federal campaign laws when the Commission pays for the costs of general election debates with contributions from corporations. Federal law does not allow corporations to donate to federal candidates.
On March 8, the Georgia Senate passed SB 202 by 32-20. It would provide that overseas absentee voters use ranked choice voting in general elections for partisan office. It would also move the date for general election run-offs for all other voters from nine weeks after the general election, to four weeks after the general election.
Thus, if the bill would have been in effect in 2020, the two U.S. Senate general election runoffs would not have been on January 5, 2021. They would have been on December 1, 2020. Generally Republicans Senators voted for the bill, and Democratic Senators voted against it.
The bill also provides that future special elections would have partisan nominees. Currently, Georgia special elections have no party nominees. Candidates file and get on the ballot for the special election as individuals, and no one needs a petition. That is why in Georgia’s special election for the short U.S. Senate seat last year had a Green Party member (labelled as such) on the ballot, the first time the Green Party had ever had a candidate with the party label on the ballot for a Georgia congressional race. See this story about the bill. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Two federal lawsuits are pending to challenge the order of candidates on primary ballots in New Jersey. Both were filed in 2020 by Democratic primary candidates. Unlike all other states, New Jersey primary ballots do not simply list all candidates for a single office in a particular spot on the ballot. Instead candidates are grouped in “party-column” format, which the candidates preferred by the local party officers listed in a single column in the top-most or left-most part of the ballot, and others placed far away in different columns.
Both cases are assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Freda L. Wolfson, a Bush Jr. appointee. The cases are Mazo v Way, 3:20cv-8174, and Conforti v Hanlon, 3:20cv-8267. Both cases have been moving slowly, but in a month all briefs will have been filed.
Mike Feinstein has this article at ivn.us, explaining how HR One, the Democratic Party’s election law bill in congress, has provisions that would harm free elections. Feinstein acknowledges the many helpful parts of the bill and points out how much better it could be.
On March 20, Louisiana held two special elections to fill vacancies in the U.S. House. See the results here.
