According to this story, New Hampshire’s State Senate will create a new committee just for election law bills, because there are so many election law bills in the upcoming 2017 session. The New Hampshire already has an election law committee.
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Three New Hampshire Republican legislators have introduced HB 231, which would provide that each of the state’s two U.S. House districts would elect their own presidential elector. If this bill had been in effect in the 2016 election, Donald Trump would have received one electoral vote from New Hampshire. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
Law professor Vikram David Amar has this column on whether it is constitutional for states to bar candidates for President from appearing on the ballot unless they reveal their income tax returns. He seems to lean to the idea that it would not be constitutional, although he is somewhat ambivalent.
He mentions the U.S. Supreme Court opinion U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, which struck down state laws barring congressional candidates from the ballot if they already served three terms. But he seems to feel that decision doesn’t relate to presidential elections, because the Constitution does not even require states to hold a popular election for presidential electors. But, in my opinion, that is irrelevant. U.S. Term Limits said that neither states nor Congress can add to the qualifications of any federal election office. The decision says, “The Framers envisoned a uniform national system, rejecting the notion that the Nation was a collection of States, and instead creating a direct link between the National Government and the people of the United States.” The theory behind the decision appears to me to relate to president just as much as congress.
No state has ever kept a presidential candidate off its ballot because he or she was in prison. Presidential candidates who have run while in prison include Eugene V. Debs in 1920 and Vincent Hallinan in 1952. Also, the Communist Party presidential nominee in 1940, Earl Browder, was an ex-felon when he ran. Despite the intense hostility toward Browder and the Communist Party in 1940 (because the party was against U.S. involvement in World War II that year, because of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in effect during 1940), no state kept Browder off the ballot because he was an ex-felon. Browder was removed from the ballot in many states in 1940 under other pretexts. Even Ralph Nader in 2004 didn’t face as much ballot access hostility as Browder in 1940.
California State Senators Jerry Hill and Ben Allen have introduced SJR 3. If passed, the legislature would be on record as endorsing the National Popular Vote Plan. Furthermore, the Secretary of the California Senate would forward a copy of the resolution to the leaders of the legislatures of each state that hasn’t already passed the plan.
As reported previously, on September 30, 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson had ruled that independent candidates cannot be forced to submit a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote in special congressional elections, because the time period for circulating such petitions is so much shorter than in a regular election. The state filed a notice of appeal on October 28, and its brief was to be due December 27, 2016.
However the state has requested a time extention, so now its brief is due January 26, 2017. This case has growing importance if U.S. Senate Jeff Sessions resigns early next year to become Attorney General of the United States, and if (as expected) Alabama then calls a special U.S. Senate election sometime in the first half of 2017. The case is Hall v Merrill, 16-16766. The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) is helping with some of the expenses of this case. COFOE greatly appreciates all the individuals who have joined COFOE and, with their dues, made this possible.