On April 29, San Diego city councilmember Mark Kersey said he is switching his voter registration from Republican to independent. San Diego is the nation’s 8th most populous city, with a population of 1,420,000. It has nine city council members.
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Current Colorado election law does not permit anyone to get on a presidential primary ballot unless that candidate has qualified for primary season matching funds. But, a portion of the omnibus election law bill, HB 19-1278, now pending in the House, would delete that requirement. The bill has already passed the State Senate.
Assuming that part of the bill is signed into law, presidential primary candidates would merely need to pay $500, or submit 5,000 signatures. Only parties that polled 20% of the vote in the last presidential election may have presidential primaries in Colorado. These days, virtually no Democratic or Republican presidential candidate files for primary season matching funds. Individuals who qualify for primary season matching funds are handicapped by strict expenditure limits within each of the various states, so presidential candidates avoid qualifying.
Colorado didn’t have presidential primaries in 2016. The 2017 law that drew up the rules for presidential primary ballot access included the primary season matching fund provision, but now legislators are aware of how impractical that idea is.
The Green Party national committee is inviting local Green Party committees who want to host the national convention to inform the national committee. The national committee will decide on the host city in August 2019.
On April 26, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 5074. It requires all presidential electors to have signed a pledge, promising to vote in the electoral college for the candidate who received the most popular votes in the state. It is odd that the legislature passed this bill before the Washington State Supreme Court issues an opinion in Guerra v Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings, 95347-3. That is the lawsuit over the old law, which fines “faithless” presidential electors $1,000 if they don’t vote for the expected presidential candidate. The opinion could come out at any time.
Texas Representative Valoree Swanson (R-Spring) has introduced HB 4128. It would require political parties, and independent presidential candidates, to submit twice as many candidates for presidential elector as are assigned to Texas. Half would be designated as elector candidates, and the other half as alternate elector candidates. The bill also says that a week before the electors meet, each elector must sign an oath promising to vote for the presidential candidate who received the highest number of popular votes in Texas. If any elector then votes for someone else, he or she is deemed to have resigned and to be replaced by one of the alternate electors.
The bill has a hearing in the House Elections Committee on April 29, Monday.