Texas has four ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green. Parties remain on the ballot by either polling 2% for Governor, or 5% for any statewide race. In 2014, there are three statewide partisan races in which no Democrat is running. This makes it virtually certain that both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party will poll over 5% for those races, and thus will be on the ballot in 2016.

The three statewide offices with no Democratic candidates this year are State Supreme Court seat 8; Court of Criminal Appeals seat 4; and Court of Criminal Appeals seat 9.

On another Texas topic, January 2, 2014, was the deadline for any unqualified party to tell the state if it intends to petition in 2014. The Texas Secretary of State’s office says the information as to whether any unqualified party filed that notice by the deadline won’t be known until Monday, January 6.

On January 2, filing closed for the District of Columbia’s April 1 primary. The District has four ballot-qualified parties, all of whom nominate by primary. There are four city council seats up in 2014 from particular districts. The only parties that have candidates for any of the district seats are the Democratic Party and the Libertarian Party. Although members of the Republican and Statehood Green Party have candidates for the at-large seat, they have none for any of the district seats.

The D.C. Board of Elections web page lists the primary candidates here. See the list of candidates on the right, near the top.

It is always possible that write-in candidates in the primaries will win a party nomination.

The Republican National Committee meets in Washington, D.C., January 22-25. The committee will decide whether to change the rules for presidential primary dates. If the full committee agrees with a subcommittee, all presidential caucuses and primaries will be no earlier than March 1 (except for the four states that have permission to go earlier…Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida).

The Committee may also choose a national convention date, which could be in June or, if not, probably in July. The major parties never want to have their national conventions during the Olympics, and the 2016 Olympics will be August 5-21. For each of the last three presidential elections, both major parties held their conventions after the Olympics.

The tradition is that the party holding the White House holds its national convention after the other major party. If Republicans choose early July, Democrats will undoubtedly choose late July. If both national conventions are in July, or if one is in July and the other is in June, there will probably be activity in state legislatures to move the June presidential primaries to an earlier date. States with June presidential primaries are California, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, and New Mexico.

On January 2, a California Superior Court Judge in Sacramento tentatively ruled that California election officials were wrong to reject referendum petitions submitted to Tulare and Mono Counties late last year. The California Constitution requires state referendum petitions to be submitted within 90 days after the bill was signed. It happened that the deadline for a recent statewide referendum petition was on a Sunday, November 10. Proponents tried to file their signatures on the afternoon of November 8 in one county, and on November 9 in another county, but county officials rejected them because they weren’t open for business. The Secretary of State also ruled that the petitions should be rejected.

The tentative ruling says that when petition deadlines fall on a weekend, the true deadline is the next business day. Thanks to AroundtheCapitol for this news.

The referendum proponents want to repeal a law passed by the California legislature on transgender public school students and their ability to use certain bathrooms. The lawsuit is Gleason v Bowen, 34-2013-80001714.

In June 2013, Pennsylvania Representative Eli Evankovich introduced HB 1572, to abolish the straight-ticket device. The bill had a hearing on December 11, 2013, in the House State Government Committee, which is a sign that the bill will probably move ahead. The bill now has 15 co-sponsors.

Joe T. May has qualified for the special Virginia State Senate election, 33rd district, in Loudoun County. He is running as an independent, even though he was elected to the House in 2011 as a Republican. May needed 250 valid signatures and submitted 843. This special election will determine which major party controls the State Senate. See this story. The election is on January 21.