The Maine Joint Veterans & Legal Affairs Committee heard two bills that improve ballot access for new and small parties on Monday, May 8. In Maine, committees don’t vote on the day of the hearing. The hearing went well. The Secretary of State’s representative and several other witnesses testified in favor of the bills. No one testified against, and no legislator expressed opposition.

LD 295 corrects an imbalance in the definition of “party.” Existing law says an unqualified party that runs a candidate for President or Governor who gets 5% becomes a qualified party. But if an already-existing party polls 5% for President or Governor, that achievement has no effect.

LD 1571 moves the deadine for a group to become a qualified party (by getting 5,000 registrations) from December of the year before the election, to March of the election year. It also says that qualified parties with registration under 50,000 should nominate by convention instead of primary. The sponsor of both bills is Representative Louis Luchini.

Columbus, Ohio, held elections for city council and school board on May 2. Although the elections are formally non-partisan, party organizations play a big role. The Working Families Party in Columbus, which is called Yes We Can Columbus, sponsored candidates for two city council seats and three school board seats. All five placed first or second and thus will go into a run-off in November. See the organization’s web page here.

This story explains that no Republicans qualified for the run-off, so the November election for those five offices will be between regular Democrats and Working Families associates. Because the Working Families members voted in the Democratic primary in Ohio last year, under Ohio law they are also considered to be members of the Democratic Party.

On May 4, the California Assembly passed HB 84 by 52-20. It moves the primary for all office, in presidential years, from June to March. A similar bill, SB 568, had already passed the State Senate. However the two bills are not identical so further legislative action is needed.

Generally, Republicans in the Assembly voted against the bill, whereas Democrats voted for it. The only Democrat who voted “no” is Bill Quirk. The only two Republicans who voted “yes” are Jordan Cunningham and Tom Lackey.