On Tuesday, February 9, the Elections Subcommittee of the Virginia House Privileges & Elections Committee will hear HB 82. The bill changes the definition of a party, from a group that polled 10% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections, to one that polled 5% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections. Thanks to Nicholas Cote for this information.
On Monday, February 8, the New York State Senate Elections Committee will hear SB 6604. It moves the congressional and legislative primaries to the third Tuesday in August. It also moves the petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from August 23 to July 26.
This is a rival bill to AB 9108, which moves the petition deadlines to June 7, and which moves the primary to late June. AB 9108 has already passed the Assembly. SB 6604 is sponsored by Senator Frederick J. Akshar (R-Binghampton).
On February 5, the Federalist Society Chapter at Harvard Law School sponsored a debate between professors Laurence Tribe and Jack Balkin on presidential eligibility. See the Washington Post’s story, and its link to the debate itself. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link to the Post.
On February 5, the U.S. District Court that is handling Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, s.d., 2:13cv-953, got closer to a final decision on the last issue to be decided. That last issue is whether Ohio applied a campaign finance law in a discriminatory manner in 2014, when for the first time it kept a candidate off the ballot because the circulators didn’t fill out a blank form on the petition, telling who their employer was. The law had never before kept anything off the ballot, whether a ballot measure or a candidate. But in 2014, it was used to keep the only Libertarian running for Governor off the Libertarian primary ballot. That kept the party from having any gubernatorial nominee in 2014, and that insured it went off the ballot, because the only way it could stay on was by polling 2% for Governor.
The February 5 activity in the case was an order denying sanctions against attorneys representing the side of the case in opposition to the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party had requested sanctions, because some of those attorneys and witnesses had made it so difficult for the truth to be revealed about who was paying legal bills to keep the party’s candidate off the ballot. Although the Court did not impose sanctions, it said, “The overall conduct of discovery in this case, especially on the part of Mr. Felsoci’s and Mr. Casey’s counsel, demonstrates a pattern of technical and begrudging responses and objections to discovery requests, which pattern was clearly designed to delay or obstruct the Plaintiffs’ ability to learn that the Ohio Republican Party was involved in the effort to keep Libertarian Party candidates off the ballot…should these particular attorneys or parties come before the Court in future cases, the history of their conduct here will strongly influence the Court’s approach to discovery, including sanctions.”
This story says Republicans are becoming more supportive of the National Popular Vote Plan. The story has a focus on Missouri.
