On February 23, the Maine House defeated LD 742. It was a proposed state constitutional amendment to require that statewide initiatives would need signatures equal to 10% of the last gubernatorial vote in each of the two U.S. House districts. Currently law has no distribution requirement. The vote was 90-57 in favor, but it needed two-thirds. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for this news.
Professor Lee Drutman has this analysis on how the 2016 Republican presidential selection process would have worked if the party used Instant Runoff Voting in its primaries and caucuses. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
In August 2015, the Washington State Supreme Court fined the state $100,000 per day until the legislature funds education in a more equal manner. The problem is that wealthy districts have adequate funds for education, but less wealthy districts do not. Therefore, the state is not providing equal education in the public schools, which violates the State Constitution.
According to this story, the only progress toward reforming education funding in this year’s legislative session is a bill that authorizes a study of the problem. The story also says that the regular 2016 legislative session is only twenty days away from adjournment, and so far only one bill on any subject has passed the legislature this year.
Washington state has had a top-two system starting in 2008. Proponents of top-two systems constantly say that top-two systems produce legislators who work together better and are less partisan. The reason education is such a problem in Washington state is that the Democrats have a majority in the House, and Republicans in the State Senate. The two parties don’t agree, so it is very difficult to get a bill through the legislature. The mainstream press in California, the other top-two state, never mentions the evidence from Washington state that top-two systems by themselves do not create smooth government.
Political science research has generally found that the amount of partisanship and polarization in state legislatures is not related to what kind of primary that state uses.
On February 24, the Utah legislature passed SB 25, which repeals the straight-ticket device, and also eliminates party logos from the ballot. The bill passed unanimously in both houses. A “logo” is a small drawing representing a political party. In 2014, the Democratic logo was a donkey, the Republican logo was an elephant, the Libertarian logo was the upper portion of the Statue of Liberty, the Constitution logo was an eagle, and the Independent American logo was the U.S. flag.
Assuming Governor Gary Herbert signs the bill, the only states that will have the device are Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas. There are bills in each house of the Indiana legislature to repeal the device (SB 391 and HB 1020), but neither one has made any progress this year.
On February 25, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the state must put Willie Wilson on the March 8 Democratic presidential primary ballot. He had been erroneously omitted. The law said he either needed 500 signatures from the entire state, or 100 signatures from each U.S. House district. Mississippi has four districts. Wilson chose the option of simply collecting 500 signatures, and ignoring the other method that requires 400 and a distribution requirement. He submitted 1,050 signatures.
But the state requires presidential candidates who petition to submit their petitions to the party, not to election officials. Democratic Party officials, who received his petition, erroneously thought the law required a distribution requirement, so they rejected the petition, but did not tell him until after they had already certified the list of candidates to the state. The party later admitted its mistake, but then the state said it had already printed and mailed overseas absentee votes, and that the state thought it would not be proper to have Wilson on the normal ballots when he had been left off the absentee ballots.
The Court said due process demands that Wilson be put on the regular ballots, but did not require the state to put him on the absentee ballots. The decision is 6-3. The case is Wilson v Hosemann, 2016-IA-148.
Mississippi does not require candidates discussed in the news media to submit any petition, so Hillary Clinton, Martin O’malley, and Bernie Sanders did not need to petition. The only other Democrat who did petition in Mississippi is Rocky De La Fuente, and he had already been put on the ballot because the party had accepted his petition. Thanks to Andrew Finko for this news.
