On February 24, the North Dakota House passed HB 1181. It requires a special election when there is a vacant U.S. Senate seat. In 36 states, including currently in North Dakota, when a U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant, the Governor appoints a new Senator. The new Senator then serves until the next regularly-scheduled congressional election. See this story.
Maine LD 507 will be heard in the Joint Committee on State and Local Government on Monday, March 9, at 10 a.m., in room 437 of the State House. This is the bill that sets a cap on the number of signatures needed for a candidate to get on the primary ballot of a party. The requirement could not be greater than 1% of any particular party’s registration. In Maine, only members of parties can sign primary petitions, and it is almost impossible for a small ballot-qualified party to comply with the existing law for statewide office and U.S. House. Those petitions are 2,000 signatures and 1,000 signatures, respectively.
No Maine ballot-qualified party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, in the last 80 years, has been able to comply with the existing law for either House of Congress. With great difficulty, the Green Party has complied with the existing law twice for Governor. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for this news.
Fox and Hounds has this article, suggesting that California’s exclusion of minor party candidates on the general election ballot is partly responsible for low turnout in November 2014 in California. California has the nation’s biggest drop in general election turnout between November 2010 and November 2014. The article is by Richard Winger.
The unofficial, incomplete vote totals for Connecticut’s special election for State Senate, 23rd district, are: Edwin Gomes, Working Families 1,485; Richard DeJesus, Democrat, 791; Rev. Kenneth Moales, independent, 509; Quentin Dreher, Republican, 152; Charles Hane, independent, 105.
Because the Working Families Party got over 20% of the vote in this election, it gets additional public funding for this election retroactively, as well as in 2016 for this particular district. Gomes assumed he was going to get over 20% and that he would get more public funding, so he will use the post-election money to pay campaign expenses.
On February 24, the Utah Senate voted against SB 43 by a vote of 19-9. Utah has been the only state in which it is impossible for anyone to get on a primary ballot unless he or she does well at a party caucus prior to the primary. In 2014 the legislature passed a law saying anyone can petition on to a primary ballot, regardless of what the caucus thought of that person.
SB 43 would have suspended the law passed in 2014. See this story, which says that the bill lost because it seemed unfair to undo the 2014 legislation, even temporarily. The reason it seemed unfair is that the 2014 bill passed in the face of a proposed initiative to make the same change. The initiative proponents withdrew their petition because the 2014 legislature made the change.
