The Bylaws and Rules Committee of the Democratic National Committee is considering a proposal to abolish super-delegates to national presidential conventions. See this BuzzFeed story. Thanks to Michael Drucker for the link.
7
California’s U.S. House district 48 is one of the seats that Democrats had been hoping to win in 2018. However, this article in the Orange County Register says that with two strong Republicans, and eight Democrats, running in the June primary, chances are good that no Democrat will qualify for the November ballot. The two Republicans are incumbent Dana Rohrabacher and former Republican Party state chair Scott Baugh.
UPDATE: Democrats are also worried about the same problem in two other California districts, the 39th and the 49th. See this NPR story.
The Utah legislature adjourned Thursday night, March 8. Neither of the two bills that had passed the House, affecting how parties nominate, received a vote in the Senate, so both bills died.
HB 485 would have said that parties can’t change their rules affecting nominations in the election year itself. The bill was aimed at the Republican Party, which had passed a bylaw earlier this year saying any Republican who submits a petition to get on the primary ballot is deemed not to be a Republican.
HB 338 would have repealed the law that lets members of qualified parties petition for a place on the primary ballot, even if they lack much support at a party convention.
Kansas State Senator John Doll has lost his committee assignments, because he changed his registration from Republican to independent. See this story.
On March 8, a conference committee of the South Dakota legislature revised the ballot access bill and greatly improved it. Then, both houses of the legislature passed the bill. The Senate vote was unanimous and in the House, only five members voted “no.”
The new ballot access procedure for small qualified parties is a petition of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, due July 1. Then, the new party, and also older qualified smaller parties, are free to nominate for all office by convention, with no more petitioning needed.
The bill helps independent candidates by moving their petition deadline from April to July. UPDATE: unfortunately, the improvement in the independent petition deadline did not make it into the final bill. Thanks to Kurt Evans for that information.