On March 7, the Kansas Senate passed SCR 1611. It would amend the State Constitution to say that voters elect Supreme Court Justices. If it passes the House, then the voters would vote on the idea in August 2026.
Here is the text. It is vague and does not say whether the elections would be partisan or non-partisan.
On March 7, Utah State Senator Daniel Thatcher changed his registration from Republican to Forward. He was first elected to the Senate in 2010. See this story explaining why he switched.
Thatcher is the first state legislator who is a member of the Forward Party and not a member of any other party. He is up for re-election in 2026.
Utah voters have not elected a third party nominee to the legislature since 1916, when the Socialist Party won a seat.
On March 1, the Republican Party of Virginia’s Sixth U.S. House District voted to sue over a new law that appears to require the party to nominate only by primary. See this story.
On March 6, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed A5116, which changes ballot format in primaries. The bill switches primary ballots from columns or rows, to an office-group style.
However, New Jersey still uses the old format for the general election, to the disadvantage of minor party and independent candidates. In most counties, the Democratic and Republican Parties have their own party columns, and every other candidate is squeezed into a column headed “Nomination by Petition.” That column is on the right-hand side of the ballot and many voters don’t even see the names of the candidates in that column.
Both bills in the Iowa legislature to ease ballot access failed to pass the committee in their house of origin by March 6, so they are dead. SF 68 would have moved the petition deadline for non-presidential minor party and independent candidates from March to August. SF 70 would have eased the definition of a qualified party.
SF 68 did not affect policy, because the March petition had already been held unconstitutional in 2022, and is not enforced. So all the bill would have done was to bring the code up-to-date. One would think that bill could have easily passed, but it didn’t.
