The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Republican Party of Louisiana v Federal Election Commission, 16-865, on May 18. The issue is the federal campaign finance law that restricts donations to state and local political parties, if the money will be used to help candidates for Congress and President. The 3-judge U.S. District Court had upheld the limits, in a decision issued November 7, 2016.
Last year, Colorado voters passed an initiative that changes Colorado primaries from closed primaries to semi-closed primaries. The initiative said independents could vote in any party’s primary. However, the initiative did not clarify whether independent voters had to make a public choice of which primary ballot they were choosing.
On May 8, SB 305 passed the Senate and a House Committee, and it will probably pass the House on May 10. It says that independents must make a public choice of which party’s primary they are choosing. The major parties, the only ones that normally have primaries in Colorado, desire to know who is voting in their primaries. The bill says that the independent voter will then be considered to be a member of the party whose primary ballot they chose, but then they are assumed to be independents again (automatically) when the next primary comes along. See this story.
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.
A bill to vastly improve ballot access in North Carolina, SB 656, passed the Senate unanimously last month. On May 8, it was transferred from the House Rules Committee to the House Elections Committee, which seems to indicate it is likely to soon move ahead in the House.
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.
