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.
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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.
Maine Representative Beth Turner (R-Burlington) has introduced LD 568, which eliminates the ability of an independent candidate to use the label “independent” on the ballot. It also eliminates the ability of an unqualified party to place nominees on the ballot with that party’s label.
A somewhat similar law was struck down by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1981. The State Supreme Court decision was unanimous, and said “independent” is too important a label to be banned. The Massachusetts law that was struck down forced all independents to be on the ballot as “unenrolled.” The decision is Bachrach v Secretary of the Commonwealth, 415 NE 2d 832.
Also, in 1986, a Maine state trial court struck down the old Maine law on labels for petitioning candidates. The old pre-1986 law said they could have no label whatsoever, but in Huber v Quinn, that policy was struck down. Ever since the 1986 Maine decision, petitioning candidates in Maine have been free to choose any partisan label as long as it is no longer than three words and does not mimic the name of a qualified party. Thanks to John Branson for news about LD 568.