Alaska Representatives Max Gruenberg (D-Anchorage) and Scott Kawasaki (D-Fairbanks) have introduced HB 17, to establish a top-two system. Because parties would no longer have nominees (except for president) the bill deletes the vote test for a party to become or remain ballot-qualified, but retains the alternative registration test. Thanks to J. R. Myers for this news.
As mentioned last month, Arizona Representative Phil Lovas (R-Peoria) has introduced HB 2015, to move Arizona’s February presidential primary to the day the major parties hold presidential caucuses in Iowa. The bill also says that should some other state move its presidential primary to a date earlier than the Iowa caucus, then the Arizona presidential primary would also go ahead of the Iowa caucus, and would match that other state’s date. This news story appears to say the bill will be heard in committee next week.
In 2012, the Iowa major party caucuses were on January 3.
Arizona Representative Doug Coleman (R-Apache Junction) has introduced HB 2015. It would remove the names of presidential elector candidates from the November ballot. Only five states still print the names of presidential elector candidates on ballots, and Arizona is the most populous of those. Printing the names of eleven candidates for presidential elector for each presidential candidate takes up quite a bit of room on ballots, so if this bill passed, the ballot would be smaller and neater.
On February 18, the Michigan House passed SB 44, after amending it to set the presidential primary date on the 2nd Tuesday of March instead of the 3rd Tuesday. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Last year, the Utah legislature passed a bill that requires all qualified parties to alter their nomination process. The Republican Party does not like the new law and had filed a federal lawsuit against the new system on December 1, 2014. Utah Republican Party v Herbert, 2:14cv-876.
Last month, the Utah Constitution Party intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the Republican Party. The old law, practically speaking, permits the Constitution Party to nominate by convention. The new law would permit anyone, even someone who is not a member of the party, to submit a primary petition signed by 2% of the party’s members. If that petition succeeds, the party would be forced to nominate by primary for that particular office. The Constitution Party’s amended complaint explains how that would potentially injure the party.
