On March 31, the Seventh Circuit held oral argument in Common Cause of Indiana v Individual Members of the Election Commission, 14-3300. The issue is the Indiana law that says for Indianapolis (Marion County), but no other county, the partisan election for trial court judges shall use limiting voting. No political party may run for more than half the seats that are up.

Although in theory independent candidates and the nominees of minor parties can run for these judicial seats, almost always, the only candidates on the general election ballot are Democrats and Republicans. Since neither of those parties can run for more than half the seats, the voters have no real choice. Typically, 16 judges are to be elected, but there are only eight Democrats and eight Republicans on the ballot, so the outcome of the election is a foregone conclusion.

Limited voting exists in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, but in those places, it exists for government bodies with multiple members, such as city councils or school boards. The Indiana limited voting is different because trial court judges don’t sit together as a multiple-member body. Each judge handles his or her case load as an individual. The voters who challenged the Indiana system argue that voting must be meaningful, and when the typical election has a foregone conclusion, the election is not meaningful. The U.S. District Court in this case had invalidated the system. Here is a link to the oral argument, which lasts 30 minutes. The judges were Michael S. Kanne, a Reagan appointee; Ilana D. Rovner, a Bush Sr. appointee; and U.S. District Court Judge Theresa Springmann, a Bush Jr. appointee from Indiana. Judge Rover dominated the discussion and seems inclined to strike down the system, and to uphold the U.S. District Court decision.

Indianapolis has used limited voting since 2006.

In March 2015, South Dakota made its ballot access laws worse. SB 69 moved the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from March 29 to March 1; said no one can independent candidate petitions if they are registered into a qualified party; increased the number of signatures for major party members to get on a party primary ballot, and made their deadlines earlier as well.

Also in the 2015 session, the legislature passed a controversial bill limiting the voter-approved measure to increase the minimum wage. The legislature passed a bill saying the increase doesn’t apply to persons under age 18.

The AFL-CIO and other groups are angry about the minimum wage bill, so they started a petition to put a repeal of that law on the November 2016 ballot. When referendum petitions get enough valid signatures, the new law passed by the legislature is suspended until the public votes. Because the AFL-CIO is doing one referendum petition on the minimum wage, it decided it might as well do a second referendum petition at the same time, to ask the voters to repeal SB 69. The AFL-CIO is mostly interested in fighting SB 69 because it has a disproportionate effect on Democrats who want to run in the Democratic primary. SB 69 increased their primary petitions from 1% of the last vote for their party nominee for Governor to 1% of the registered voters in that party.

The referendum petitions began to circulate earlier this month. Thanks to Jackie Salit and Harry Kresky for this information.

Fox and Hounds Daily, a prominent California politics blog, has this commentary by Richard Winger on California AB 372, the bill to require write-in candidates in the primary to pay a large filing fee if they get enough votes to appear on the November ballot.