A bill is pending in the Texas legislature to end partisan elections for state judges. See this story. Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link. The story says the bill probably won’t pass this year.
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On April 18, the Florida House State Affairs Committee passed HB 7111 by 12-6. It makes it illegal for initiative proponents to pay circulators on a per-signature basis. The bill had previously passed the House Judiciary Committee. It will probably have a vote on the House floor on April 24. The bill is mostly supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
On March 29, Montana HB 647 was defeated in the House by 43-57. It would have increased the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 5,000 signatures, to 5% of the winning gubernatorial candidate’s vote in the last election. For 2020 that would have been 12,797 signatures.
Every Democrat voted for the bill, and every Republican except one, Geraldine Custer, voted against it. The Libertarian Party is on the ballot in Montana, but no other third parties are on. The Green Party tried to get on in 2018. It had enough valid signatures statewide, but after the Secretary of State put it on the ballot, the Democratic Party filed a challenge, and the State Supreme Court ruled that the party had failed to meet the distribution requirement. The Green Party has a federal lawsuit pending against the existing law. The basis for the lawsuit is the March petition deadline and the unequal distribution requirement.
If the bill had passed, the distribution requirement would have been made even more severe.
On April 19, the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party said it will try to persuade the state Democratic Party to let independent voters vote in Democratic primaries. Under the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, parties have the right to decide for themselves whether to let independents vote in their primaries.
Florida is the only state in the south (unless Kentucky is considered a southern state) in which independents can’t vote in partisan primaries. If the state Democratic Party does decide to let independents vote in its primaries, that would put pressure on the Florida Republican Party to do the same thing.
The Mimai-Dade County Party idea is from the county party’s new chairman, Steve Simeonidis, who is an attorney. Thanks to Michael Drucker for this news.
On April 19, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Kleeh, a Trump appointee, ordered the city of Salem, West Virginia, to restore a local initiative to the June 4, 2019 ballot. The order is oral and is not yet in writing. UPDATE: see this news story.
The city had removed an initiative to decriminalize marijuana even though it had enough valid signatures. City officials felt the initiative, if passed, would contradict state law and be invalid. But the proponents charged that it violates due process for the city to have taken that action. The case is Hyman v City of Salem, n.d., 1:19cv-75.
This decision is similar to one from last year concerning local initiatives in Portage County, Ohio. Thanks to Mark Brown for this news.