On March 21, the Tennessee Senate State and Local Government Committee defeated SB 344. It would have provided that there would be no more Democratic or Republican primaries for U.S. Senate. Instead, members of those parties in the legislature would nominate for U.S. Senate.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Independent Party v Padilla, 17-1200, on March 23. It will consider whether to hear Tripp v Scholz, 17-1129, on March 29. The first case is from California and the second one is from Illinois. The Court never reveals what it has decided at its normal Thursday or Friday conferences until the following Monday.
On March 20, the Tennessee Senate State and Local Government Committee sent SB 770 for summer study. This is the bill that lowered the number of signatures from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to exactly 5,000.
An identical bill in the House, HB 662, was taken off the House Committee calendar on March 21.
On June 5, Montana holds partisan primaries. Technically all qualified parties in Montana nominate by primary, but the state has almost never before printed up any primary ballots for parties other than Republican or Democratic. Generally minor parties don’t have contested primaries, and Montana doesn’t print primary ballots for parties with no contests.
However, this year the Green Party has two candidates running against each other for U.S. Senate, so there will be Green Party primary ballots. See this story.
On March 22, a trial state court in Madison, Wisconsin, ordered Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to schedule special elections for two empty seats in the legislature. See this story. The Governor had wanted to keep the seats vacant until the November 6, 2018 election. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link. UPDATE: the case is Newton v Walker, Dane County, 2018cv-519.
