On February 28, both houses of the Hawaii legislature passed the presidential candidate tax returns bills on second reading. “Second reading” does not formally pass a bill, but it is easy to predict that such bills will pass on “third reading”, after they have passed second reading. The bills are SB 94 and HB 712.

The bills bar presidential candidates from the general election ballot if the candidate has not released tax returns. The bills also bar presidential electors from voting for a presidential candidate who has not released returns. There is no presidential primary in Hawaii so the bill, if passed, has no effect before the general election.

On March 1, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed two lawsuits in state trial court. One attacks the law that says the Ohio Election Commission will never have any members of parties other than the two largest parties. The other lawsuit challenges the failure of the Ohio Election Commission to enforce the law, when the Ohio Debates Commission barred the Libertarian 2018 gubernatorial candidate from debates and didn’t set out any objective criteria for those debates.

The law provides that members of the commission will consist of four members of the largest parties, four members of the second-largest party, and one person who is not a member of any party. Therefore, no member of any other party may ever be a member of the Commission.

On February 28, Arkansas State Senator Trent Garner abandoned his old bill to move the primary, and presented his new bill on the same subject, SB 445. It moves the primary for all office in presidential years from May to the first week in March. It leaves the primary in midterm years in May.

Significantly, SB 445 does not alter the petition deadline formula for newly-qualifing parties. That means that the petition deadline continues to be 60 days before the candidate deadline for filing in primaries. Because the bill moves the primary, that automatically moves the petition deadline, from January of the election year, to November of the year before the election.

Newly-qualifying parties do not nominate by primary, so it is completely irrational to link the date of the primary to that petition deadline.

The Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs passed SB 445 unanimously. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.