On February 27, the National Popular Vote bill was introduced in the Delaware legislature. SB 22 is co-sponsored or sponsored by 13 State Senators and 25 Representatives. The Delaware Senate has 21 members and the Delaware House has 41 members. This means that a majority of members of each house are sponsoring the bill. This makes it extremely likely that the bill will pass.
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, the New Hampshire House passed HB 706. Here is the text. It sets up an independent redistricting commission, to draw boundaries for all the partisan district offices in the state. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
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.
On February 28, the New Hampshire House defeated HB 440 on a voice vote. It would have required presidential candidates, and also congressional candidates, to reveal the last three years of their income tax returns. It would also have barred presidential electors from voting for anyone who had not released tax returns. Here is the text of the bill. Another bill on that topic, which only applies to presidential candidates, HB 202, is still alive. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
