The South Dakota Senate State Affairs was to have considered SB 69 on Friday, January 23, but has put off the hearing until next week. The bill, as originally introduced, moves the petition for a newly-qualifying party from March to February. An amendment has been put forth to provide that parties can also get the ballot with a June deadline, but such parties would nominate by convention, not by primary. South Dakota holds its primaries in June. The ACLU of South Dakota deserves credit for getting the amendment introduced, and it will be discussed next week.

Six Georgia State House members have introduced HB 58, which lowers minor party and independent petitions for district and county office. The bill lowers these petitions from 5% of the number of registered voters, to 2% of the last vote cast when that office was last voted on.

If the bill were in effect for 2016, an independent or minor party candidate for U.S. House in the average district would need 3,294 signatures. The current law for the average U.S. House district is 18,540 signatures. Thus, the bill would be a big improvement for U.S. House, legislature, and county office.

The bill would have no effect on the law that enables a group to get on the ballot for all the statewide offices (but not the district offices). That existing law requires a petition of 1% of the number of registered voters (51,912).

The bill also makes changes for statewide candidate petitions, but the statewide changes are not helpful. It would require 2% of the last vote cast for statewide office, just as it does for district office. For statewide office in 2018, if the bill were in effect, 51,004 signatures would be needed, whereas under current law 51,912 are needed, so that would mean virtually no change. But, if the bill were in effect, the 2016 presidential candidate petitions would be worse than they are now. Current law for independent presidential candidates in 2016 requires 49,336 signatures, but if the bill were in effect 78,100 signatures would be needed.

The chief sponsor of HB 58 is Representative John Pezold (R-Columbus). The others are Rusty Kidd (I-Milledgeville), Joe Wilkinson (R-Atlanta), Michael Caldwell (R-Woodstock), David Stover (R-Newnan), and Scot Turner (R-Holly Springs). HB 58 is almost exactly like a bill introduced in 2005, HB 927. The 2005 bill was introduced in late March, so it was too late to advance that year, and it didn’t advance in 2006 either. However, the lead sponsor for HB 927 back in 2005 was Representative David Ralston, and Ralston is now the House Speaker. Thanks to Garland Favorito for this news.

On January 21, the supporters of Maine’s program for public funding of campaigns submitted 85,000 signatures for their statewide initiative to expand the public funding program. See this story. Assuming the initiative gets on the ballot, it will have a vote this year, in November 2015.