On June 5, the Oregon House passed SB 870, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. It is now through the legislature. The vote was 37-22.
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On June 3, the Louisiana legislature passed HB 563, which moves the 2020 presidential primary from the first Saturday in March, to the first Saturday in April.
Although Louisiana has six qualified parties, only parties with at least 40,000 registered voters have their own presidential primary in Louisiana, so this change only affects the Democratic and Republican Parties. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
On June 4, the Maine legislature passed LD 1626. It sets up a presidential primary in 2020, in March. It does not include ranked choice voting, nor does it alter the law that doesn’t let independents vote in Maine primaries unless they join a party on or before primary day. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
On May 29, Colorado House Bill 19-1278 was signed into law. It increases the number of signatures for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, for all offices except president. The statewide non-presidential petitions rise from 1,000 signatures to 7,000, and there is now a congressional district distribution requirement for those statewide petitions.
On May 31, both sides in Soltysik v Padilla submitted papers to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles about the upcoming trial. The issue is the law that won’t let members of unqualified parties have their party labels on the ballot, when they run for congress or partisan state office. Members of qualified parties do have their labels printed on the ballot. The ACLU, which is handling this case for the plaintiff (a member of the Socialist Party) proposes that all discovery be finished by October 11, 2019. The state does not want discovery to be complete until March 25, 2020, but if the state’s schedule is accepted, even if the case wins, the decision will be too late for the 2020 election. The case was first filed in 2014.