On April 17, the Montana House passed SB 408, which says there will be a popular vote in November 2014 on whether Montana should switch from an open primary to a top-two primary. The bill passed 57-43. All Democrats, and four Republicans, voted “No.” Now the bill goes back to the Senate.
The Hawaii Democratic Party has decided to sue the state, to overturn the state’s law that requires the party to hold an open primary to choose its nominees. The complaint is already in the process of being drafted. Other states in which major parties have sued to rid themselves of an unwanted open primary include Idaho, Virginia, and South Carolina. Republicans were the plaintiffs in those states. The Idaho Republican Party won its lawsuit; the Virginia Republican Party won a partial victory; the South Carolina lawsuit is still going on.
Every year, the American Association of Political Consultants evaluates the year’s preceding campaign ads, and awards the producers of those ads a “Pollie” Award. At the April 5, 2013 AAPC awards event, three ads produced for Jill Stein’s presidential campaign won awards. Use this link for details, and for links to the ads themselves.
Minor party activists are working very hard to influence state legislators in at least four states, to either support bills for easier ballot access, or to oppose bills that make it worse.
In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Committee recently e-mailed every state legislator. Also Constitution Party activists recently met with the Senator who chairs the Senate State Government Committee. These are all attempts to persuade the legislature to pass SB 195, which eases ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates. The bill has been introduced in three sessions of the legislature, including the current one, but so far it has not made any progress. This year, the bill has co-sponsors from both major parties. Recently State Senator John Blake (D-Archbald) became a co-sponsor.
In Montana, Libertarian Mike Fellows is spending the day at the capitol on April 17, lobbying against SB 408, the bill that would put a referendum on a top-two open primary on the November 2014 ballot. The bill may receive a third reading vote in the House on April 17 or April 18. It has already passed on second reading in the House, but it was amended, so even if it passes third reading, it must go back to the Senate. The amendment says that when only two candidates file for the June primary, no primary for that office is held, and the two candidates appear on the November ballot.
In North Carolina, activists have scheduled meetings with all members of the House Elections Committee who have not already said that they support HB 794, the ballot access reform bill.
In California, activism is helping to delay or defeat the bills to restrict write-in candidates’ ability to move on to the November election; and also to help defeat the bill to make it a crime for a party to pay registration drive workers on the basis of how many registrations in any particular party they obtain. The association of California election officials does not support the bill, nor does the Secretary of State, and the ACLU is opposed to it.
Since 1947, New York state has restricted the ability of outsider candidates to run in party primaries. Outsiders can run in a party primary, but only if party leaders approve letting any particular non-member candidate run in that party’s primary. This restriction is called the Wilson-Pakula law.
Virtually all public offices in New York are partisan, so there are thousands of local partisan elections in very small-population jurisdictions. Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed to the legislature that the Wilson-Pakula law be repealed. But leaders of the Conservative Party and the Working Families Party are afraid that if the restriction is repealed, they will be raided, especially in small jurisdictions where those parties may have very small numbers of registrants. The Green Party of New York, which is also ballot-qualified, probably shares their sentiments, because its enrollment is smaller than the enrollment of the Conservative Party and the Working Families Party. Parties feel that activists of the Democratic and Republican Party will enroll in those parties, in certain areas, just to control the nomination process of those parties.
One solution would be to let small qualified parties nominate by convention instead of by primary. States that let any ballot-qualified party choose whether to nominate by convention or primary are Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia. States that provide that small ballot-qualified parties nominate by convention in all cases, or virtually all cases, are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
