On March 7 the South Dakota legislature decided to send HB 1286 to a conference committee, which will probably meet on March 8. This is the bill that makes some ballot access improvements but also increases some ballot access barriers. The legislature goes home on March 9.
Scott Tucker has this opinion piece in Truthdig about California’s top-two system.
On March 7, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez pocket-vetoed SB 178. It would have ended primaries for Lieutenant Governor. Instead, party nominees for Governor would have chosen their own Lieutenant Governor running mate after the primaries were over.
Because of the veto, the current system will remain in force, in which candidates for Lieutenant Governor file to run in party primaries, but in November Governor and Lieutenant Governor run as a team. This can result in a Governor and a Lieutenant Governor who are not politically compatible.
On March 7, the Utah House passed HB 485. It says that if parties want to change their rules relative to their nomination process, the rules change must be made in the year before the election. This bill is designed to block the recent Republican Party rule change that said any Republican who submits a petition to be on the Republican primary ballot is deemed not to be a Republican.
The vote in the House was 40-31. The Republican Party opposes this bill and says it violates due process for the law to be changed this late in the season. Now the bill goes to the Senate. The legislature adjourns on March 8 so there isn’t much time for this bill to pass.
Texas held primaries on March 6 for Congress and partisan state and county office. Approximately 1,600,000 voters chose a Republican ballot, and approximately 1,060,000 voters chose a Democratic ballot, for a total of 2,660,000 primary voters.
Texas has 15,249,541 registered voters, so this is a turnout of approximately 17%. Texas almost always has one of the nation’s lowest turnout rates. Perhaps if the Texas primary were later in the year, turnout would be higher. The only other state with a March primary is Illinois, which holds its primaries this year on March 20. After that, no state has a primary earlier than May 8.
Six unqualified parties are now legally permitted to begin petitioning for a place on the general election ballot. Voters who voted in the primary cannot sign such petitions. Texas is the only state that bars primary voters from signing a petition to place a party on the general election ballot.
