On February 11, only ten minutes before the challenge deadline, the petitions of three candidates for U.S. House (in the special election to fill the vacant Illinois 2nd district seat) were challenged. Petitions for the Green Party candidate, and two of the three independent candidates, were challenged. One independent candidate, Marcus Lewis, did not have his petition challenged. Lewis insists he and his campaign had nothing to do with the challenge.

The challenged candidates are Green Party nominee LeAlan Jones, and these two independent candidates: Curtiss Bey and Elizabeth Pahlke. The hearing on the challenges will probably be next week.

Montana Representative Nicholas Schwaderer (R-Mineral) has introduced HB 397, to move the non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline to mid-July. The current March deadline was held unconstitutional last year. The Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, which has already passed the House, moves that deadline from March to late May, which is still too early by court precedents. The Secretary of State supports HB 397, and says she didn’t put the July deadline in her own omnibus election law bill because an omnibus election law bill, by tradition, doesn’t make any law changes that are controversial. The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee also supports HB 397. Thanks to Steve Kelly for this news. HB 397 has a hearing on February 13.

According to this article, California State Senate leaders will probably introduce a constitutional amendment to permit indirect initiatives. Indirect initiatives are used successfully in Massachusetts. Proponents of an initiative who successfully gather part of the needed signatures can force the legislature to examine that proposed initiative. If the legislature approves the idea, but changes it somewhat, then the proponents can either consider themselves satisfied, or if they don’t like the legislature’s proposal, they can simply finish the petition and it still goes on the ballot.

The system works well because, frequently, initiative backers make mistakes in drafting their proposal, but the indirect initiative offers a method to alter the wording.

The article says the Senate Democrats are also thinking of new ways to hamper initiatives, such as requiring that all statewide initiative petitions be circulated partially by volunteers. This idea would probably be held unconstitutional, because in 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Colorado ban on paying circulators. That case was Meyer v Grant, 486 U.S. 414.