On April 2, the California Senate Elections Committee unanimously passed SB 505. It makes it more difficult for presidential candidates to get on the primary ballots, especially for the Peace & Freedom Party and the American Independent Party. The author of the bill, Senator Tom Umberg, told the witness for the Peace & Freedom Party that candidates who want to be on the PFP ballot can just collect signatures. The petition would need 1% of the party’s registrants, and only party members could sign. Senator Umberg said a PFP presidential candidate would only need about 750 signatures. Of course, when the California Constitution was amended in 1972, concerning presidential primary ballot access, the whole objective was to eliminate the need for petitions for that purpose.

Reason blog has this article about Congressman Justin Amash and the idea that he might seek the 2020 Libertarian presidential nomination.

On March 30, Louisiana held three legislative special runoff elections. In the 62nd district, independent Roy Daryl Adams was elected, defeating his Republican opponent. Here are the unofficial election returns.

In the February initial election, the vote had been: Adams 1,556; the Republican candidate 2,300; and three Democrats got a combined total of 1,204 votes.