Last month, a ballot access reform bill, HB 32, was introduced in the North Carolina House. A similar bill will be introduced in the Senate this week by Senator Andrew Brock (R-Mocksville).
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On February 28, the Nebraska legislature advanced LB 399, without opposition. This is the bill that eases the statewide non-presidential independent petition distribution requirement. Current law requires 50 signatures from each of 30 counties. In effect, this requires 30 separate petitions, all of which must succeed. The bill eliminates the county distribution requirement and substitutes a requirement that the petition must have 750 signatures from each of the three U.S. House districts.
The bill has no effect on the total number of signatures required, which is 4,000 signatures.
The legislature’s specific action on February 28 was to “advance the bill to enrollment and review for engrossment”, which in most states is called second reading.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Cao v Federal Election Commission, 10-776, at its March 18 conference. This is the case in which the Republican Party and former Congressman Joseph Cao hope to expand the party’s ability to spend greater amounts of money supporting their own nominees, even if there is limited coordination between the party and the nominee.
On February 28, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted held a press conference and outlined his ideas for improving election administration in Ohio. However, he said nothing about ballot access for parties, even though the state’s law on that subject was held unconstitutional over four years ago and the legislature has not passed a new law. See the press release. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for the link.
On February 28, the faction of the American Independent Party that is associated with the Constitution Party filed this ten-page brief. The case is called King v Robinson, and is pending in Superior Court in Solano County, California. There will be a hearing in Fairfield, California, on March 11, Friday, at 9 a.m.
The dispute has been pending since 2008, when the California Secretary of State determined that the AIP faction that supported Alan Keyes for President was the legitimate faction.
On February 24, Heidi Fuller filed her opening brief in Fuller v Bowen in the State Court of Appeals, case number C065237. This is the case that challenges the California Secretary of State’s refusal to enforce the State Constitutional requirement that candidates for the legislature must have lived in their district for one year before filing to run.