On June 24, the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee passed SB 300. It had passed the State Government Committee on June 19. It now moves to the Senate floor.
It lets independents voters choose a partisan primary ballot. Under existing law, only party members may vote in primaries.
California Senator Tom Umberg is amending his SB 696, so as to transform it into a bill that bans any party from using “Independent” as part of its name.
The American Independent Party is now on the ballot in California. If this bill becomes law and is not overturned, the American Independent Party would be required to change its name, but it would retain all the registered members it now has. Read it here .
According to Senator Umberg’s office, the word “Independence” would also be banned. The bill bans variations of the word “independent”.
On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court released opinions in four cases, but did not release the opinions in the gerrymander cases, which are from Maryland and North Carolina. There will be more opinions on Wednesday, June 26.
On June 20, the Alaska legislature adjourned, although there may be a short special session soon dealing only with financial matters. The regular session did not pass any election law bills. Bills that failed to pass included HB 90, to ease the definition of “qualified party”, and HB 150, which would have set up all-postal balloting.
The Associated Press has this story about the various states in which Republican-majority legislatures this year have passed bills making it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot.
The story does not mention California, where Democrats are about to pass a bill that would also make it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot. That bill is AB 1451.
Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
