On February 22, Oklahoma Representative Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie) became the House Co-Sponsor for SB 896, which eases the definition of “political party.” Oklahoma bills need sponsors in each of the two houses. The bill has already passed the Senate Rules Committee. It lowers the vote test from 10% to 2.5%. The bill, if passed, would still leave Oklahoma with a relatively severe vote test, because the only offices that count are President and Governor.
This story describes the Indiana legislature’s deliberations on SB 352, a bill to revamp the election system for choosing state court trial judges in Indianapolis. The old system was held unconstitutional last year. The old system was technically a partisan election, but no party was permitted to run nominees for more than half the seats. Because only the Democratic and Republican Parties usually nominated judicial candidates, effectively the voters had no choice. The candidates named on the November ballot couldn’t be defeated, unless a very strong write-in candidate emerged.
On February 22, U.S. District Court Judge Karen Schreier expedited the ballot access lawsuit that had been filed by the Libertarian and Constitution Parties on June 15, 2015. The state’s brief is due March 3; the reply brief is due March 8; and the hearing is March 17, Thursday, at 9 a.m. The issue is the constitutionality of the March 29 petition deadline for new parties.
The Women’s Equality Party of New York is refusing to nominate the Democratic nominee in the April 19 special election for Assembly, 65th district. See this story. As far as is known, this is the first time the Women’s Equality Party has abstained from cooperating with the Democratic Party since the party was born in 2014. The Democratic nominee, Alice Cancel, is a woman.
On February 22, Connecticut government attorneys filed a brief in support of the state law that bans out-of-state circulators for primary petitions. The plaintiff, Shawn Wilmoth, wants to circulate a petition to put Rocky De La Fuente on the Democratic presidential primary in Connecticut. The state says the Democratic Party has an interest in preventing non-members of the party from circulating Democratic primary petitions. However, the Democratic Party has not intervened in this lawsuit.
Wilmoth lives in Michigan, a state that doesn’t have registration by party. Therefore, he can’t prove that he is a Democrat, although the state can’t prove that he isn’t a Democrat.
