Frontloading HQ has this useful chart, showing when each state legislature convenes this year, and also when it is expected to adjourn. Frontloading HQ obtained the information from a chart prepared by the National Conference of State Legislatures, and converted it into a more useful format.
The New York legislature will take up various election law reforms on January 14, Monday, according to this story. So far the bills have not been placed on the legislature’s web page.
Law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos here analyzes the part of H.R. 1 that requires all states to use nonpartisan methods to draw U.S. House boundaries. H.R. 1 is the bill introduced in the U.S. House and supported generally by Democrats in the House. The text of the bill is still not on the web page for Congress, but it should be shortly.
Stephanopoulos supports the part of the bill concerning gerrymandering, but he has some suggestions to improve the bill.
The New York Independence Party has been ballot-qualified starting in November 1994. Its share of the vote for its nominees (in the districts in which it had nominees) was the lowest in 2018 since the 1990’s.
For U.S. House, its nominees polled 1.47% of the vote (in the districts that it contested), the lowest in history.
For State Senate, its nominees polled 3.39%, the lowest since 1998. The 1998 percentage was 2.93%.
For Assembly, the 2018 percentage was 2.98%, the lowest since it has been a qualified party.
For the office at the top of the ballot (President in presidential years, and Governor in gubernatorial years), its 2018 percentage was 1.13%, the lowest in its history, except 2000, when it nominated John Hagelin for President and he only polled .36%. Hagelin was also the Natural Law Party nominee that year.
In general, all of the New York minor parties that mostly nominate Democratic and Republican nominees as their own nominees, did poorly in 2018. Perhaps New York voters are getting weary of the “fusion” parties.
Here is the Associated Press story about the outcome in federal court on January 8, concerning the Montana Green Party’s ballot access lawsuit.
