On February 11, Alaska Representative Bryce Edgmon changed his registration from Democratic to independent. Thanks to Steve Goodale for this news.
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According to this story, Georgia Representative Ed Rynders, chair of the House Government Affairs Committee, says he will not hold a hearing on HB 191, the bill to ease ballot access barriers. Rynders has been in the legislature since 2002.
Arkansas SB 276 would move the primary for all office from May to March. It would also move the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from January of the election year, to November of the year before the election. It was on the agenda in the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee for February 14, but the author, Senator Trent Garner, again didn’t bring it up. It had also been on that committee’s agenda for February 12, so that is twice that it has been postponed. It is now on the committee agenda for February 19.
Two members of the U.S. House have introduced a bill to let members of the public see federal court documents, without being charged 10 cents per page. Currently anyone can see any U.S. Supreme Court brief, just by going to the U.S. Supreme Court web page. But if anyone wants to see documents filed in a lower federal court, one must be signed up with PACER. PACER charges ten cents per page. Also the pay feature of PACER requires users to establish an account and use a password, which is cumbersome. If PACER were free, there would be no need for any of that.
The sponsors are Mike Quigley (D-Illinois) and Doug Collins (R-Georgia). The bill doesn’t have a bill number yet. The bill is called the Electronic Court Records Reform Act. Thanks to Howard Bashman for this news.
Three Democrats and two Republicans in the California Assembly have introduced ACA-8. It would amend the California Constitution to set the voting age at 17. The authors are Democrats Evan Low, Autumn Burke, and Todd Gloria; and Republicans Randy Voepel and Phillip Chen. If the legislature approves the bill in the next few months, then the voters would vote on it in March 2020.