On February 12, the Hawaii Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 94, which requires presidential candidates for the general election to reveal their tax returns. It also says that no presidential elector may vote for someone in the electoral college who has not revealed his or her income tax returns.
The House Judiciary Committee had already passed an identical bill, HB 712, but neither vote has had a floor vote yet.
On February 15, William Weld said he has launched an exploratory committee for a race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020.
On February 14, Arkansas SB 163 was sent to Governor Asa Hutchinson. It increases the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 10,000 signatures, to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, almost 27,000 signatures. In Arkansas, Governors only have five consecutive days after the bill reaches them to either sign or veto the bill, but Sundays and holidays don’t count, so he has until Thursday, February 21.
A Guam territorial court has dismissed a lawsuit concerning how to handle primary votes when voters cast votes in the primaries of two different parties. Election officials void those votes. The lawsuit had been filed to try to validate those votes, but it was dismissed on procedural grounds. See this story.
As previously reported here, yesterday the Indiana Senate defeated SB 571, the bill to ease the petitioning requirement for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. One Democratic State Senator, according to the article, said the voters would be confused if there were more candidates on the ballot. Yet ever since 2002, there have been three candidates for all statewide offices in Indiana, or fewer, on general election ballots. Here is the article.
