On February 15, the New Mexico House Judiciary Committee tabled HJR 12, the proposed state constitutional amendment that said independent voters may vote in partisan primaries. See this story. Thanks to Rick Lass for the link.
New Mexico major party political leaders act as though they don’t realize that the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 said that parties decide for themselves whether to let independents vote in their primaries, and state laws cannot set that policy for any party.
Martin O’Malley has withdrawn his name from the Maryland Democratic presidential primary, and Robert H. Heller, Jr., has withdrawn his name from the Maryland Republican presidential primary. But other Republicans who have announced that they are no longer running have not bothered to withdraw their names from Maryland’s primary, including Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum.
The pattern seems to be that when major party presidential candidates end their campaigns, they only act to remove their names (if it isn’t too late) from the ballot of their home state, but they don’t exert the effort to withdraw from other states’ presidential primaries.
On February 16, filing for the Pennsylvania presidential primaries closed. All candidates need petitions to get on the ballot. A presidential candidate needs 2,000 signatures on his or her own petition, and additional petitions for delegates.
The Pennsylvania Elections Department has this list of presidential candidates who filed petitions. Republicans who filed are Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump. Democrats are Hillary Clinton, Rocky De La Fuente, Bernie Sanders, and Willie Wilson.
An earlier version of this post said that John Kasich did not file a petition, but that was based on an incomplete list from the Pennsylvania Elections Department. Kasich was added to the list at about 6:30 p.m. eastern time.
On February 16, the Connecticut Secretary of State said these names will automatically be on the Democratic presidential primary: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Republicans who qualified automatically are Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump.
Other candidates can qualify by petition. Democrats need 7,039 signatures of registered Democrats, and Republicans need 4,003 signatures of registered Republicans. See this story.
On February 16, the voter rights organizations who had sued North Carolina over its U.S. House district boundaries filed this reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. The briefs on whether the lower court ruling should be stayed are now all complete, and the U.S. Supreme Court should rule very soon on whether the 2016 election should use the old districts, or districts that have yet to be drawn. If the stay is denied, there will almost certainly need to be a second primary in North Carolina this year, one for U.S. House, held after the new districts are in place. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
