On February 19, the Virginia House passed SB 1049, which lets inactive voters sign petitions. The bill now goes to the Governor. The bill also sets up an appeals process when a candidate is told he or she doesn’t have enough valid signatures.
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New York Assemblymember J. Gary Pretlow has introduced A4046, to change the definition of a qualified political party from a group that polls 50,000 votes for Governor, to a group that polls 100,000 votes for Governor. The bill, if enacted and in effect right now, would remove the Green Party from the ballot. Assemblymember Pretlow is a Democrat from Mt. Vernon. He has introduced similar bills in past sessions of the legislature.
The Tennessee bill to lower the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party now exists in both houses of the legislature. The House bill is HB 958. It is the same as SB 1091, and both bills would lower the number of signatures from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (over 44,000) to exactly 1,000. The sponsor of HB 958 is Representative Jason Powell (D-Nashville).
On February 21, the Montana House State Administration Committee tabled HB 436, which would have set up a top-two primary system in that state. Thanks to James Conner for this news. The vote was 16-3. UPDATE: see this story. Thanks to Mike Fellows for that link.
Arizona State Senator Michele Reagan (R-Scottsdale) has introduced SB 1416, to provide that statewide initiatives must collect at least 40% of their valid signatures from voters who live outside Maricopa County (which has Phoenix) and Pima County (which has Tucson).
The bill also provides that newly-qualifying party petitions would need at least 10% of their signatures from outside those two counties. Under court precedents, this bill, if enacted, would be unconstitutional.