The Third Circuit will hold oral arguments in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, 16-3266, on March 23, Thursday. The issue is the validity of Pennsylvania’s county distribution requirement for statewide minor party and independent petitions for state office.
On March 1, the North Carolina Senate Elections Committee passed HB 100, which converts trial court judicial elections from non-partisan to partisan. The bill had already passed the House.
The South Dakota Senate State Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on HB 1035 on Monday, March 6. The bill, among other things, makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis, if they are working on a petition for a new party. South Dakota already bans paying per-signature for candidate petitions and initiative petitions.
Committees in both houses of the Tennessee legislature will hear the bills to lower the number of signatures on March 7, Tuesday. The bills, HB 662 and SB 770, lower the number of signatures for a new party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to exactly 5,000. The Senate bill is in the Senate State & Local Government Committee, and the House bill is in the House Local Government subcommittee.
On February 21, the Utah House passed HB 204, which sets up presidential primaries in Utah. On February 28, the bill passed the Senate Government Operations Committee. The bill does not include details of how the primary would be run, how candidates would get on the ballot, or even the date. Presumably if HB 204 is signed into law, bills in the near future would include details.
The bill does not exclude any qualified parties. In some states, only large qualified parties are provided with presidential primaries.
