On October 15, the Arizona State Court of Appeals, Division One, suspended the higher contribution limits passed by the 2013 session of the legislature. The court acted only two hours after hearing oral arguments. There is no opinion yet.

The lawsuit is Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission v Brain, 1 CA-SA 13-0239. The Citizens Clean Elections Commission runs the state’s public funding program, and it opposes the new higher contribution limits because it believes that higher campaign contribution limits will motivate candidates to ignore the public funding program. The Commission argued that the Arizona Constitution requires changes to the public funding program can only take effect if 3/4ths of the legislators approve them. The 2013 bill, raising the contribution limits, did not get enough support in the legislature to meet that standard. The legislature, on the other hand, argues that the contribution limits are not really part of the public funding law.

The 2013 bill raised the maximum donation to a legislative candidate from $440 to $4,000. The legislature and the Secretary of State will probably ask the State Supreme Court to overturn the State Court of Appeals. Some 2014 candidates have already received some contributions that are in excess of the old limits. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

As previously noted, New Jersey holds two statewide partisan general elections in the next few weeks. Voters vote on October 16 for U.S. Senate, and then on November 5 for Governor and legislature. The two elections would both have been on October 16 if Governor Chris Christie had not vetoed AB 4237 last month. As a result of his veto, election administrators are spending $12,000,000 that would have been saved if the two elections had been on the same day.

Rob Richie of Fairvote has this article about this situation on Salon. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

For several years, Pennsylvania ballot access activists, operating as the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Committee, have been trying to persuade the legislature to pass the ballot access reform bill that has repeatedly been introduced. For the first time, State Senator Lloyd Smucker (R-Lancaster) has agreed to meet with the Coalition. Senator Smucker is chair of the State Government Committee, the Senate committee that handles election law bills. The meeting will be in the Senator’s district office in Lancaster on October 28 at 10 a.m. Attendance is by invitation, because only eight activists will be permitted to participate in the meeting.

The bill, SB 195 by Senator Mike Folmer and others, has three co-sponsors who are on that Committee. Also, three other Senators on that Committee have recommended that a hearing be held. The committee has eleven members, so a majority of the Committee desire the hearing. The bill would reduce the number of signatures needed by independent candidates to the same number needed for major party members to get on their party’s primary ballot. For minor parties, the bill would use registration data instead of petitions to determine which parties are on the ballot. Smaller qualified parties would nominate by convention.