The Arkansas Libertarian Party will submit its petition for party status on Monday, June 12. The law requires 10,000 signatures and the party will submit approximately 15,000.
This will be the second petition submitted for party status in any state this year, by any third party. The first was the petition of the United Utah Party, submitted last month in Utah. UPDATE: see this story.
The California Assembly Elections Committee will hear SB 568 on Wednesday, June 14. This is the bill that moves the primary for all office (in presidential years) from June to the third Tuesday in March. The bill also gives the Governor authority to move the primary date to an even earlier date.
Meanwhile, AB 84, the other bill that moves the primary from June to March, has had its hearing in the Senate Elections Committee cancelled by the bill’s author. This suggests that the leadership of the legislature has decided that SB 568, rather than AB 84, is the bill that will probably pass. Each bill has passed its house of origin. The difference in the two bills is that AB 84 sets the primary in the first week of March, but does not give the Governor the authority to move the primary to an even earlier date. Governor Jerry Brown has yet to indicate which bill he prefers (if any) and if he later indicates he prefers the AB 84 approach, then probably that bill would move ahead.
Moving the primary for Congress and partisan state office to March will have profound consequences for the top-two system. The Ninth Circuit, in a Washington state case, already ruled that forcing minor parties to run only in August instead of November is only a “slight” burden, because, the Ninth Circuit said, August is near the peak of voter interest. The Ninth Circuit said it would be a far different matter if minor party candidates for Congress and partisan state office were confined to running in March, which is far from November.
On June 6, the North Carolina House passed SB 655, which moves primaries for all office from May to March. However, also on June 6, the House amended the bill so that it doesn’t take effect until after 2018. The reason is that the state will need to redistrict, and putting the 2018 primary in March would make it more difficult to do the redistricting.
The vote on the bill itself was 71-46. Generally Republicans voted “yes” and Democrats voted “no.” Now the bill goes back to the Senate, to consider the amendment that set the effective date after 2018.
The New Jersey Constitution Party has successfully placed Matt Riccardi on the New Jersey ballot for Governor, for the November 2017 election. This is the first time in the party’s history that it has had a nominee on the ballot for that office. Here is the party’s web page.
However, because the candidate didn’t submit a letter from the state officers of the party, permitting him to use the party’s name as his ballot label, he will be on the ballot as “Putting NJ First.” UPDATE: the New Jersey Elections Department now says he will have “Constitution Party” on the ballot next to his name. This update is being posted on June 11.
Professor Chia-Chi Teng, who wanted to run for U.S. House in the November 2017 special election in Utah’s Third District, was barred from the Republican primary ballot because he didn’t file in-person. He was temporarily teaching in China. He sued to overturn the law that requires filing in person (except for government employees and members of the military), but lost in the lower state court. On June 5 he said he will not appeal to the Utah Supreme Court.
However, state representative Craig Hall says he will introduce a bill next year to delete the requirement that candidates must file in-person. See this story.
