Steve Goodale of Newsgrowl has published this article about Arkansas SB 163, the bill to almost triple the number of signatures for a new party to get on the ballot. The bill will be voted on in the House on February 13, Wednesday.
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On February 12, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee passed HB 2338. It moves the deadline for candidates who are filing to run in a partisan primary from April to January. The primary is in late June. The bill also moves the independent candidate deadline (for office other than president) to file from April to January.
The author said the purpose of the bill is to standardize the filing deadline for non-presidential candidates with the filing deadline for candidates running in the March presidential primary. The bill allows a later deadline for candidates filing in the primary of a new party.
No one seems to have discussed the problem that moving the non-presidential independent deadline to January is almost surely unconstitutional. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for the news about the bill passing the Committee.
Every member of the Montgomery County, Maryland legislative delegation is sponsoring HB 624. This is a bill to let Montgomery County use ranked choice voting for its own officers. The bill has a hearing in the House Ways & Means Committee on February 19. The bill’s chances are very good, given that the entire county delegation supports it. Thanks to Michael Drucker for this news.
The Iowa Democratic Party has drawn up a plan that converts its presidential caucus to something that is more like a presidential primary. Votes could be tallied even if the individual party member is unable to physically attend. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Oklahoma Representative Sean Roberts (R-Hominy) has a bill pending that moves the deadline for candidates to file in a primary from April to January. He has recently amended his bill, HB 2338, to provide that candidates may file in the primary of a new party according to the original April deadline. This amendment was logically necessary, because the petition deadline for new parties to qualify is in March. Without the amendment, new parties that qualified near their petition deadline could not have had anyone running in their primaries.
The bill still forces independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in January, however, which is almost certainly unconstitutional. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for the news about the amendment.