Bills for the National Popular Vote Plan have been introduced in both houses of the Arizona legislature. They are HB 2456 and SB 1218. Amazingly, two-thirds of members of the legislature are co-sponsoring the bills, making it extremely likely they will pass. Arizona will then be the first state with a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature to have passed the plan.
The March 8 Mississippi presidential primary will list four Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Rocky De La Fuente, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders.
The California Republican Party has asked the Secretary of State to list eleven presidential candidates on its primary ballot: Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Paul, Rubio, Santorum, and Trump. Some Republican officials argued that Rand Paul should be omitted, on the grounds that he didn’t participate in either debate on January 14. However, the majority of Republican decision-makers did support including Paul. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for this news.
Duf Sundheim, a former California Republican state chair, and a supporter of California’s top-two system, is quoted here as saying that “of course” the Republican Party will need to persuade some of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate not to file for the June 2016 primary. Scroll down to “Border to border” to see that news.
Three Republicans have announced for U.S. Senate this year. They are Sundheim himself, who lives in Santa Clara County; Tom Del Beccaro, another former state chair of the party who lives in Contra Costa County; and Assemblymember Rocky Chavez of San Diego County.
Recent polls have shown that two Democrats, Attorney General Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, will place first and second in the June 7 top-two primary, leaving the Republicans with no candidate in the general election campaign. But if only one Republican runs, potentially that one Republican might place in one of the top two spots. This race shows how the top-two system actually reduces voter choice even in the primary election, because without the top-two system in place, all three prominent Republicans could run without fear of injuring their own party.
On January 19, the U.S. District Court Judge in Utah who is handling the Republican Party lawsuit over nomination methods told both sides to ask the Utah Supreme Court to settle what exactly the existing law requires. The submissions are due January 27. The question for the Utah Supreme Court is whether the existing law in fact requires political parties to allow candidates to petition onto that party’s primary ballot or not.
If the Utah Supreme Court interprets the existing law to mean that a party can block candidates from petitioning onto the primary ballot, then there is no need for the federal court to decide if the primary petition requirements are too burdensome. But if the Utah Supreme Court says the Republican Party must let candidates petition onto the Republican primary ballot, then the U.S. District Court will decide whether those petitions are too burdensome. They require 28,000 signatures for statewide office, and 7,000 for U.S. House.
