On March 10, the Oklahoma House passed HB 2181 by a vote of 90-0. The eleven members who didn’t vote were all excused that day, which means that no legislator who was in the chamber abstained. The bill now goes to the State Senate. It lowers the petition for a newly-qualifying party to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
On March 9, the opening brief was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, in D-R Organization of New Jersey v Guadagno, A-206-14. This case was filed in the trial court in August, 2014, but the courts ruled that it should have been filed directly in the Appellate Division, so now that is where it is.
The issue is the proper interpretation of election law 19:5-1, which says, in part, “no political party which fails to poll at any primary election at least 10% of the votes cast in the State for members of the General Assembly at the last general election, held for the election of all members of the General Assembly, shall be entitled to have a party column on the official ballot at the general election for which the primary election has been held.”
In June 2014, the turnout in both major parties was so low that neither party had enough voters in its primary to satisfy the law. However, New Jersey election officials gave both major parties their own party column anyway. Check back in a day or two to read the brief. The plaintiff, the D-R Organization, is a minor party that exists only in New Jersey. It listed many candidates on the general election ballot last year, and expects to have even more in this year’s election for state legislature. New Jersey elects its state officers in odd years.
On March 9, the Arizona House defeated HB 2138 by 26-33. It would have moved the primary for office other than President from the 4th Tuesday in August to the 2nd Tuesday in July. If the bill had passed, the deadlines for non-presidential independent candidate petitions would have moved from May to April, and the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties would have moved from February to January. The February petition deadline is already being contested in the Ninth Circuit, in a case filed by the Green Party last year.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states in which each U.S. House district elects its own presidential elector. According to this story, the Nebraska system is likely to survive. A bill to repeal it, and use winner-take-all, LB 10, seems unable to overcome a filibuster.
On February 19, the North Dakota House defeated HB 1260 by a vote of 37-55. It would have eliminated the minimum vote test for a candidate to be considered nominated in a party primary. North Dakota is the only state that says it isn’t enough for a candidate in a partisan primary to poll the most votes; the candidate, even if unopposed, must also poll a certain minimum number of votes. The minimum is the same regardless of the size of the party or regardless of how many voters choose that party’s primary. For statewide office, it is 300 votes. For legislature, it is far more severe, and requires between 110 and 140 primary votes.
The law is especially unfair to small qualified parties, because very few voters choose to vote in a minor party primary. As a result, no minor party has been able to run anyone for the legislature since 1976, when the American Party managed to qualify a few candidates. The sponsor of the bill, Representative Corey Mock, says he will continue to introduce this bill in future sessions of the legislature.
Minnesota had a similar law, but it was invalidated by the State Supreme Court in 2004 in a unanimous decision. That Minnesota case was brought by the Independence Party. Other states that had similar laws in the past are Oklahoma and Wisconsin, but they repealed these laws long ago.
